As we enter 2015, it is not useless to look backwards in order to try to guess the trends of the future. I would argue that the age
that we are, to some extent exiting now, and which extended from the early 1980s, can be called the “second age of imperialism”--the
first one, in the modern history, having been the age of high imperialism 1870-1914. I will focus here on some of its key manifestations
in the ideological sphere, in the areas I know, history and economics.
But it should be obvious that ideology is but a manifestation
of the underlying real forces, which were twofold:
i) the failure of most developing countries by 1980 to become economically successful and self-sustaining after decolonization
and the end of Communism as an alternative global ideology, and |
(ii) the relatively solid economic record of Western countries (masked by the expansion of borrowing for the lower
classes), and regained self-confidence of the elites in the wake of the Reagan-Thatcher (counter-) revolutions and the fall of
Communism.
The violent manifestations of the second age of imperialism were invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, brutal war in Libya...
In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships
has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.
Notable quotes:
"... "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, ..."
"... 1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about 75% of a year at NU. ..."
"... Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy. ..."
"... The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget. ..."
"... JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified): ..."
"... of-paying) IF a built for that purpose government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think? ..."
"... Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. ..."
"... Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply educate the proles? ..."
Thomas Piketty on a theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!:
Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy
of Meritocracy in the US: ...the amount of household debt and even more recently of student debt in the U.S. is something
that is really troublesome and it reflects the very large rise in tuition in the U.S. a very large inequality in access to education.
I think if we really want to promote more equal opportunity and redistribute chances in access to education we should do something
about student debt. And it's not possible to have such a large group of the population entering the labor force with such a big
debt behind them. This exemplifies a particular problem with inequality in the United States, which is very high inequality and
access to higher education. So in other countries in the developed world you don't have such massive student debt because you
have more public support to higher education. I think the plan that was proposed earlier this year in 2015 by President Obama
to increase public funding to public universities and community college is exactly justified.
This is really the key for higher growth in the future and also for a more equitable growth..., you have the official discourse
about meritocracy, equal opportunity and mobility, and then you have the reality. And the gap between the two can be quite troublesome.
So this is like you have a problem like this and there's a lot of hypocrisy about meritocracy in every country, not only in the
U.S., but there is evidence suggesting that this has become particularly extreme in the United States. ... So this is a situation
that is very troublesome and should rank very highly in the policy agenda in the future in the U.S.
DrDick -> Jeff R Carter:
"college is heavily subsidized"
Bwahahahahahahaha! *gasp*
In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships
has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.
cm -> to DrDick...
I don't know what Jeff meant, but "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, don't you think? Subsidies don't
have to be paid directly to the recipient. The people who are getting the student loans don't get to keep the money (but they
do get to keep the debt).
DrDick -> to cm...
No I do not agree. If anything, they are a subsidy to the finance industry (since you cannot default on them). More basically,
they do not make college more affordable or accessible (his point).
cm -> to DrDick...
Well, what is a subsidy? Most economic entities don't get to keep the money they receive, but it ends up with somebody else
or circulates. If I run a business and somebody sends people with money my way (or pays me by customer served), that looks like
a subsidy to me - even though I don't get to keep the money, much of it paid for operational expenses not to forget salaries and
other perks.
Just because it is not prearranged and no-strings (?) funding doesn't mean it cannot be a subsidy.
The financial system is involved, and benefits, whenever money is sloshing around.
Pinkybum -> to cm...
I think DrDick has this the right way around. Surely one should think of subsidies as to who the payment is directly helping.
Subsidies to students would lower the barrier of entry into college. Subsidies to colleges help colleges hire better professors,
offer more classes, reduce the cost of classes etc. Student loans are no subsidy at all except to the finance industry because
they cannot be defaulted on and even then some may never be paid back because of bankruptcies.
However, that is always the risk of doing business as a loan provider. It might be interesting to assess the return on student
loans compared to other loan instruments.
mrrunangun -> to Jeff R Carter...
The cost of higher education has risen relative to the earning power of the student and/or the student's family unless that
family is in the top 10-20% wealth or income groups.
50 years ago it was possible for a lower middle class student to pay all expenses for Northwestern University with his/her
own earnings. Tuition was $1500 and room + board c $1000/year. The State of Illinois had a scholarship grant program and all you
needed was a 28 or 29 on the ACT to qualify for a grant that paid 80% of that tuition. A male student could make $2000 in a summer
construction job, such as were plentiful during those booming 60s. That plus a low wage job waiting tables, night security, work-study
etc could cover the remaining tuition and expense burden.
The annual nut now is in excess of $40,000 at NU and not much outside the $40,000-50,000 range at other second tier or elite
schools.
The state schools used to produce the bedrock educated upper middle class of business and professional people in most states
west of the seaboard. Tuition there 50 years ago was about $1200/year and room and board about $600-800 here in the midwest. Again
you could put yourself through college waiting tables part-time. It wasn't easy but it was possible.
No way a kid who doesn't already possess an education can make the tuition and expenses of a private school today. I don't
know what the median annual family income was in 1965 but I feel confident that it was well above the annual nut for a private
college. Now it's about equal to it.
mrrunangun -> to mrrunangun...
1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about
75% of a year at NU.
This allows a reader to understand how the graph was constructed and to work with the graph.
ilsm:
The US spends half the money the entire world spends on war, that is success!
Massive student debt, huge doses poverty, scores of thousands [of annual neglect related] deaths from the wretched health care
system etc are not failure!
tew:
Poor education is the enemy of meritocracy. Costly, bloated administrations full of non-educators there to pamper and pander
to every possible complaint and special interest - that is the enemy of meritocracy.
Convincing kids to simple "follow their dreams" regardless of education cost and career potential is the enemy of meritocracy.
Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy
of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy.
Manageable student debt is no great enemy of meritocracy.
cm -> to tew...
This misses the point, aside frm the victim blaming. Few people embark on college degrees to "follow their dream", unless the
dream is getting admission to the middle class job market.
When I was in elementary/middle school, the admonitions were of the sort "if you are not good in school you will end up sweeping
streets" - from a generation who still saw street cleaning as manual labor, in my days it was already mechanized.
I estimate that about 15% or so of every cohort went to high school and then college, most went to a combined vocational/high
school track, and some of those then later also went college, often from work.
This was before the big automation and globalization waves, when there were still enough jobs for everybody, and there was
no pretense that you needed a fancy title to do standard issue work or as a social signal of some sort.
Richard H. Serlin:
Student loans and college get the bulk of the education inequality attention, and it's not nearly enough attention, but it's
so much more. The early years are so crucial, as Nobel economist James Heckman has shown so well. Some children get no schooling
or educational/developmental day care until almost age 6, when it should start in the first year, with preschool starting at 3.
Others get high quality Montessori, and have had 3 years of it by the time they enter kindergarten, when others have had zero
of any kind of education when they enter kindergarten.
Some children spend summers in high quality summer school and educational programs; others spend three months digressing and
learning nothing. Some children get SAT prep programs costing thousands, and high end educational afterschool programs; others
get nothing after school.
All these things should be available in high quality to any child; it's not 1810 anymore Republicans, the good old days of
life expectancy in the 30s and dirt poverty for the vast majority. We need just a little more education in the modern world. But
this also makes for hugely unequal opportunity.
One needs to differentiate between costs (total dollars spent per student credit hour or degree, or whatever the appropriate
metric is) and price (what fraction of the cost is allocated to the the end-user student).
Note that the level of state funding impacts price, not cost; that discussion is usually about cost shifting, not cost reduction.
I'd say that the rate of increase in costs is, more or less, independent of the percent of costs borne by the state. You can
indeed see this in the increase in private schools, the state funding is small/nil (particularly in schools without material endowments,
where actual annual fees (prices) must closely actual match annual costs). Price discounts and federal funding may both complicate
this analysis.
I think much more effort should be spent on understanding and controlling costs. As with health care, just saying "spend more
money" is probably not the wise or even sustainable path in the long term.
Costs were discussed at some length here a year(?) or so ago. There is at least one fairly comprehensive published analysis
of higher education costs drivers. IIRC, their conclusion was that there were a number of drivers - its not just food courts or
more administrators. Sorry, don't recall the link.
Syaloch -> to cm...
Actually for my first job out of college at BLS, I basically was hired for my "rounded personality" combined with a general
understanding of economic principles, not for any specific job-related skills. I had no prior experience working with Laspeyres
price indexes, those skills were acquired through on-the-job training. Similarly in software development there is no degree that
can make you a qualified professional developer; the best a degree can do is to show you are somewhat literate in X development
language and that you have a good understanding of general software development principles. Most of the specific skills you'll
need to be effective will be learned on the job.
The problem is that employers increasingly want to avoid any responsibility for training and mentoring, and to shift this burden
onto schools. These institutions respond by jettisoning courses in areas deemed unnecessary for short-term vocational purposes,
even though what you learn in many of these courses is probably more valuable and durable in the long run than the skills obtained
through job-specific training, which often have a remarkably short shelf-life. (How valuable to you now is all that COBOL training
you had back in the day?)
I guess the question then is, is the sole purpose of higher education to provide people with entry-level job skills for some
narrowly-defined job description which may not even exist in a decade? A lot of people these days seem to feel that way. But I
believe that in the long run it's a recipe for disaster at both the individual and the societal level.
Richard H. Serlin -> to Observer...
"Observer"
The research is just not on you side, as Heckman has shown very well. Early education and development makes a huge difference,
and at age 5-7 (kindergarten) children are much better off with more schooling than morning to noon. This is why educated parents
who can afford it pay a lot of money for a full day -- with afterschool and weekened programs on top.
Yes, we're more educated than 1810, but I use 1810 because that's the kind of small government, little spending on education
(you want your children educated you pay for it.) that the Republican Party would love to return us to if they thought they could
get away with it. And we've become little more educated in the last 50 years even though the world has become much more technologically
advanced.
Judging both from comments on this blog and from some of my mail, a significant number of Americans believe that the answer
to our health care problems - indeed, the only answer - is to rely on the free market. Quite a few seem to believe that this view
reflects the lessons of economic theory.
Not so. One of the most influential economic papers of the postwar era was Kenneth Arrow's "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics
of Health Care," * which demonstrated - decisively, I and many others believe - that health care can't be marketed like bread
or TVs. Let me offer my own version of Arrow's argument.
There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don't know when or whether you'll need care - but
if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the
doctor's office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.
This tells you right away that health care can't be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance.
And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense
when it comes to health care. And you can't just trust insurance companies either - they're not in business for their health,
or yours.
This problem is made worse by the fact that actually paying for your health care is a loss from an insurers' point of view
- they actually refer to it as "medical costs." This means both that insurers try to deny as many claims as possible, and that
they try to avoid covering people who are actually likely to need care. Both of these strategies use a lot of resources, which
is why private insurance has much higher administrative costs than single-payer systems. And since there's a widespread sense
that our fellow citizens should get the care we need - not everyone agrees, but most do - this means that private insurance basically
spends a lot of money on socially destructive activities.
The second thing about health care is that it's complicated, and you can't rely on experience or comparison shopping. ("I hear
they've got a real deal on stents over at St. Mary's!") That's why doctors are supposed to follow an ethical code, why we expect
more from them than from bakers or grocery store owners.
You could rely on a health maintenance organization to make the hard choices and do the cost management, and to some extent
we do. But HMOs have been highly limited in their ability to achieve cost-effectiveness because people don't trust them - they're
profit-making institutions, and your treatment is their cost.
Between those two factors, health care just doesn't work as a standard market story.
All of this doesn't necessarily mean that socialized medicine, or even single-payer, is the only way to go. There are a number
of successful healthcare systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different
from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one
simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn't work. And people who say that the market is the answer are flying
in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence.
I believe so, as I noted above. The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories
of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second,
unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where
many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger
chunk of the household budget.
Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why
their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid
evidence.
anne -> to Syaloch...
Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why
their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid
evidence.
[ Look to the paper by Kenneth Arrow, which I cannot copy, for what is to me a convincing explanation as to the market defeating
factors of healthcare. However, I have no proper explanation about education costs and am only speculating or looking for an analogy.
]
anne -> to Syaloch...
The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have
some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise,
neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are
held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household
budget.
[ Nicely expressed. ]
Peter K. -> to anne...
"As to increasing college costs, would there be an analogy to healthcare costs?"
Yes, exactly. They aren't normal markets. There should be heavy government regulation.
Denis Drew:
JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified):
Only allow government guaranteed loans (and the accompanying you-can-never-get-out-of-paying) IF a built for that purpose
government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think?
Denis Drew -> to cm...
A big reason we had the real estate bubble was actually the mad Republican relaxation of loan requirements -- relying on the
"free market." So, thanks for coming up with a good comparison.
By definition, for the most part, people taking out student loans are shall we say new to the world and more vulnerable to
the pirates.
* * * * * * * * * *
[cut and paste from my comment on AB]
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.
According to an article in the Huffington Post At Kaplan University, 'Guerrilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep In Debt,
Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. Going so far as to
falsely pad bills $5000 or so dollars at diploma time - pay up immediately or you will never get your sheepskin; you wasted your
time. No gov agency will act.
According to a lovely graph which I wish I could patch in here the Post may actually be currently be kept afloat only by purloined
cash from Kaplan:
earnings before corporate overhead
2002 - Kaplan ed, $10 mil; Kaplan test prep, $45 mil: WaPo, $100 mil
2005 - Kaplan ed, $55 mil; Kaplan test prep, $100 mil; WaPo, $105 mil
2009 - Kaplan ed, $255 mil; Kaplan test prep, $5 mil; WaPo negative $175 mil
Wonder if billionaire Bezos will reach out to make Kaplan Ed victims whole. Will he really continue to use Kaplan's pirated
money to keep WaPo whole -- if that is what is going on?
Johannes Y O Highness:
"theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!: "
Too damn high
but why?
Because! Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply
educate the proles?
Opportunity cost! The burden of the intelligentsia, the brain work can by carried by robots or humans. Choice of the wealthy?
Humans, hands down. Can you see the historical background?
Railroad was the first robot. According to Devon's Paradox, it was overused because of its increment of efficiency. Later,
excessive roadbeds were disassembled. Rails were sold as scrap.
The new robots are not heavy lifters. New robots are there to do the work of the brain trust. As first robots replaced lower
caste jokers, so shall new robots replace upper caste jokers. Do you see the fear developing inside the huddle of high rollers?
Rollers now calling the play?
High rollers plan to educate small time hoods to do the work of the new robots, then kill the new robots before the newbie
'bot discovers how to kill the wealthy, to kill, to replace them forever.
Terrifying fear
strikes
Observer:
Good bit of data on education costs here
http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/
This chart shows state spending per student and tuition ...
" overall perhaps the best description of the data is something along the lines of "sometimes state appropriations go up and
sometimes they go down, but tuition always goes up." "
In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships
has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.
Notable quotes:
"... "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, ..."
"... 1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about 75% of a year at NU. ..."
"... Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy. ..."
"... The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household budget. ..."
"... JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified): ..."
"... of-paying) IF a built for that purpose government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think? ..."
"... Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. ..."
"... Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply educate the proles? ..."
Thomas Piketty on a theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!:
Student Loan Debt Is the Enemy
of Meritocracy in the US: ...the amount of household debt and even more recently of student debt in the U.S. is something
that is really troublesome and it reflects the very large rise in tuition in the U.S. a very large inequality in access to education.
I think if we really want to promote more equal opportunity and redistribute chances in access to education we should do something
about student debt. And it's not possible to have such a large group of the population entering the labor force with such a big
debt behind them. This exemplifies a particular problem with inequality in the United States, which is very high inequality and
access to higher education. So in other countries in the developed world you don't have such massive student debt because you
have more public support to higher education. I think the plan that was proposed earlier this year in 2015 by President Obama
to increase public funding to public universities and community college is exactly justified.
This is really the key for higher growth in the future and also for a more equitable growth..., you have the official discourse
about meritocracy, equal opportunity and mobility, and then you have the reality. And the gap between the two can be quite troublesome.
So this is like you have a problem like this and there's a lot of hypocrisy about meritocracy in every country, not only in the
U.S., but there is evidence suggesting that this has become particularly extreme in the United States. ... So this is a situation
that is very troublesome and should rank very highly in the policy agenda in the future in the U.S.
DrDick -> Jeff R Carter:
"college is heavily subsidized"
Bwahahahahahahaha! *gasp*
In 1980, the states subsidized 70% of the cost per student. Today it is less than 30% and the amount of grants and scholarships
has likewise declined. Tax cuts for rich people and conservative hatred for education are the biggest problem.
cm -> to DrDick...
I don't know what Jeff meant, but "easy" student loans are a subsidy to colleges, don't you think? Subsidies don't
have to be paid directly to the recipient. The people who are getting the student loans don't get to keep the money (but they
do get to keep the debt).
DrDick -> to cm...
No I do not agree. If anything, they are a subsidy to the finance industry (since you cannot default on them). More basically,
they do not make college more affordable or accessible (his point).
cm -> to DrDick...
Well, what is a subsidy? Most economic entities don't get to keep the money they receive, but it ends up with somebody else
or circulates. If I run a business and somebody sends people with money my way (or pays me by customer served), that looks like
a subsidy to me - even though I don't get to keep the money, much of it paid for operational expenses not to forget salaries and
other perks.
Just because it is not prearranged and no-strings (?) funding doesn't mean it cannot be a subsidy.
The financial system is involved, and benefits, whenever money is sloshing around.
Pinkybum -> to cm...
I think DrDick has this the right way around. Surely one should think of subsidies as to who the payment is directly helping.
Subsidies to students would lower the barrier of entry into college. Subsidies to colleges help colleges hire better professors,
offer more classes, reduce the cost of classes etc. Student loans are no subsidy at all except to the finance industry because
they cannot be defaulted on and even then some may never be paid back because of bankruptcies.
However, that is always the risk of doing business as a loan provider. It might be interesting to assess the return on student
loans compared to other loan instruments.
mrrunangun -> to Jeff R Carter...
The cost of higher education has risen relative to the earning power of the student and/or the student's family unless that
family is in the top 10-20% wealth or income groups.
50 years ago it was possible for a lower middle class student to pay all expenses for Northwestern University with his/her
own earnings. Tuition was $1500 and room + board c $1000/year. The State of Illinois had a scholarship grant program and all you
needed was a 28 or 29 on the ACT to qualify for a grant that paid 80% of that tuition. A male student could make $2000 in a summer
construction job, such as were plentiful during those booming 60s. That plus a low wage job waiting tables, night security, work-study
etc could cover the remaining tuition and expense burden.
The annual nut now is in excess of $40,000 at NU and not much outside the $40,000-50,000 range at other second tier or elite
schools.
The state schools used to produce the bedrock educated upper middle class of business and professional people in most states
west of the seaboard. Tuition there 50 years ago was about $1200/year and room and board about $600-800 here in the midwest. Again
you could put yourself through college waiting tables part-time. It wasn't easy but it was possible.
No way a kid who doesn't already possess an education can make the tuition and expenses of a private school today. I don't
know what the median annual family income was in 1965 but I feel confident that it was well above the annual nut for a private
college. Now it's about equal to it.
mrrunangun -> to mrrunangun...
1965 median family income was $6900, more than 200% of the cost of a year at NU. Current median family income is about
75% of a year at NU.
This allows a reader to understand how the graph was constructed and to work with the graph.
ilsm:
The US spends half the money the entire world spends on war, that is success!
Massive student debt, huge doses poverty, scores of thousands [of annual neglect related] deaths from the wretched health care
system etc are not failure!
tew:
Poor education is the enemy of meritocracy. Costly, bloated administrations full of non-educators there to pamper and pander
to every possible complaint and special interest - that is the enemy of meritocracy.
Convincing kids to simple "follow their dreams" regardless of education cost and career potential is the enemy of meritocracy.
Allowing young adults to avoid challenging and uncomfortable and difficult subjects under the guise of compassion is the enemy
of meritocracy. Financial illiteracy is the enemy of meritocracy.
Manageable student debt is no great enemy of meritocracy.
cm -> to tew...
This misses the point, aside frm the victim blaming. Few people embark on college degrees to "follow their dream", unless the
dream is getting admission to the middle class job market.
When I was in elementary/middle school, the admonitions were of the sort "if you are not good in school you will end up sweeping
streets" - from a generation who still saw street cleaning as manual labor, in my days it was already mechanized.
I estimate that about 15% or so of every cohort went to high school and then college, most went to a combined vocational/high
school track, and some of those then later also went college, often from work.
This was before the big automation and globalization waves, when there were still enough jobs for everybody, and there was
no pretense that you needed a fancy title to do standard issue work or as a social signal of some sort.
Richard H. Serlin:
Student loans and college get the bulk of the education inequality attention, and it's not nearly enough attention, but it's
so much more. The early years are so crucial, as Nobel economist James Heckman has shown so well. Some children get no schooling
or educational/developmental day care until almost age 6, when it should start in the first year, with preschool starting at 3.
Others get high quality Montessori, and have had 3 years of it by the time they enter kindergarten, when others have had zero
of any kind of education when they enter kindergarten.
Some children spend summers in high quality summer school and educational programs; others spend three months digressing and
learning nothing. Some children get SAT prep programs costing thousands, and high end educational afterschool programs; others
get nothing after school.
All these things should be available in high quality to any child; it's not 1810 anymore Republicans, the good old days of
life expectancy in the 30s and dirt poverty for the vast majority. We need just a little more education in the modern world. But
this also makes for hugely unequal opportunity.
One needs to differentiate between costs (total dollars spent per student credit hour or degree, or whatever the appropriate
metric is) and price (what fraction of the cost is allocated to the the end-user student).
Note that the level of state funding impacts price, not cost; that discussion is usually about cost shifting, not cost reduction.
I'd say that the rate of increase in costs is, more or less, independent of the percent of costs borne by the state. You can
indeed see this in the increase in private schools, the state funding is small/nil (particularly in schools without material endowments,
where actual annual fees (prices) must closely actual match annual costs). Price discounts and federal funding may both complicate
this analysis.
I think much more effort should be spent on understanding and controlling costs. As with health care, just saying "spend more
money" is probably not the wise or even sustainable path in the long term.
Costs were discussed at some length here a year(?) or so ago. There is at least one fairly comprehensive published analysis
of higher education costs drivers. IIRC, their conclusion was that there were a number of drivers - its not just food courts or
more administrators. Sorry, don't recall the link.
Syaloch -> to cm...
Actually for my first job out of college at BLS, I basically was hired for my "rounded personality" combined with a general
understanding of economic principles, not for any specific job-related skills. I had no prior experience working with Laspeyres
price indexes, those skills were acquired through on-the-job training. Similarly in software development there is no degree that
can make you a qualified professional developer; the best a degree can do is to show you are somewhat literate in X development
language and that you have a good understanding of general software development principles. Most of the specific skills you'll
need to be effective will be learned on the job.
The problem is that employers increasingly want to avoid any responsibility for training and mentoring, and to shift this burden
onto schools. These institutions respond by jettisoning courses in areas deemed unnecessary for short-term vocational purposes,
even though what you learn in many of these courses is probably more valuable and durable in the long run than the skills obtained
through job-specific training, which often have a remarkably short shelf-life. (How valuable to you now is all that COBOL training
you had back in the day?)
I guess the question then is, is the sole purpose of higher education to provide people with entry-level job skills for some
narrowly-defined job description which may not even exist in a decade? A lot of people these days seem to feel that way. But I
believe that in the long run it's a recipe for disaster at both the individual and the societal level.
Richard H. Serlin -> to Observer...
"Observer"
The research is just not on you side, as Heckman has shown very well. Early education and development makes a huge difference,
and at age 5-7 (kindergarten) children are much better off with more schooling than morning to noon. This is why educated parents
who can afford it pay a lot of money for a full day -- with afterschool and weekened programs on top.
Yes, we're more educated than 1810, but I use 1810 because that's the kind of small government, little spending on education
(you want your children educated you pay for it.) that the Republican Party would love to return us to if they thought they could
get away with it. And we've become little more educated in the last 50 years even though the world has become much more technologically
advanced.
Judging both from comments on this blog and from some of my mail, a significant number of Americans believe that the answer
to our health care problems - indeed, the only answer - is to rely on the free market. Quite a few seem to believe that this view
reflects the lessons of economic theory.
Not so. One of the most influential economic papers of the postwar era was Kenneth Arrow's "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics
of Health Care," * which demonstrated - decisively, I and many others believe - that health care can't be marketed like bread
or TVs. Let me offer my own version of Arrow's argument.
There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don't know when or whether you'll need care - but
if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the
doctor's office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.
This tells you right away that health care can't be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance.
And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense
when it comes to health care. And you can't just trust insurance companies either - they're not in business for their health,
or yours.
This problem is made worse by the fact that actually paying for your health care is a loss from an insurers' point of view
- they actually refer to it as "medical costs." This means both that insurers try to deny as many claims as possible, and that
they try to avoid covering people who are actually likely to need care. Both of these strategies use a lot of resources, which
is why private insurance has much higher administrative costs than single-payer systems. And since there's a widespread sense
that our fellow citizens should get the care we need - not everyone agrees, but most do - this means that private insurance basically
spends a lot of money on socially destructive activities.
The second thing about health care is that it's complicated, and you can't rely on experience or comparison shopping. ("I hear
they've got a real deal on stents over at St. Mary's!") That's why doctors are supposed to follow an ethical code, why we expect
more from them than from bakers or grocery store owners.
You could rely on a health maintenance organization to make the hard choices and do the cost management, and to some extent
we do. But HMOs have been highly limited in their ability to achieve cost-effectiveness because people don't trust them - they're
profit-making institutions, and your treatment is their cost.
Between those two factors, health care just doesn't work as a standard market story.
All of this doesn't necessarily mean that socialized medicine, or even single-payer, is the only way to go. There are a number
of successful healthcare systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different
from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one
simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn't work. And people who say that the market is the answer are flying
in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence.
I believe so, as I noted above. The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories
of expenses they have some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second,
unlike consumer merchandise, neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where
many consumer prices are held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger
chunk of the household budget.
Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why
their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid
evidence.
anne -> to Syaloch...
Another interesting feature of both health care and college education is that there are many proffered explanations as to why
their cost is rising so much relative to other areas, but a surprising lack of a really authoritative explanation based on solid
evidence.
[ Look to the paper by Kenneth Arrow, which I cannot copy, for what is to me a convincing explanation as to the market defeating
factors of healthcare. However, I have no proper explanation about education costs and am only speculating or looking for an analogy.
]
anne -> to Syaloch...
The specific market dynamics of health care expenditures are obviously different, but as categories of expenses they have
some things in common. First, both are very expensive relative to most other household expenditures. Second, unlike consumer merchandise,
neither lends itself very well to cost reduction via offshoring or automation. So in an economy where many consumer prices are
held down through a corresponding suppression of real wage growth, they consume a correspondingly larger chunk of the household
budget.
[ Nicely expressed. ]
Peter K. -> to anne...
"As to increasing college costs, would there be an analogy to healthcare costs?"
Yes, exactly. They aren't normal markets. There should be heavy government regulation.
Denis Drew:
JUST HAD AN IDEA THAT MIGHT LIMIT THE DAMAGE OF THESE PHONEY ONLINE COLLEGES (pardon shouting, but I think it's justified):
Only allow government guaranteed loans (and the accompanying you-can-never-get-out-of-paying) IF a built for that purpose
government agency APPROVES said loan. What do you think?
Denis Drew -> to cm...
A big reason we had the real estate bubble was actually the mad Republican relaxation of loan requirements -- relying on the
"free market." So, thanks for coming up with a good comparison.
By definition, for the most part, people taking out student loans are shall we say new to the world and more vulnerable to
the pirates.
* * * * * * * * * *
[cut and paste from my comment on AB]
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post.
According to an article in the Huffington Post At Kaplan University, 'Guerrilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep In Debt,
Kaplan Ed is among the worst of the worst of internet federal loan and grant sucking diploma mills. Going so far as to
falsely pad bills $5000 or so dollars at diploma time - pay up immediately or you will never get your sheepskin; you wasted your
time. No gov agency will act.
According to a lovely graph which I wish I could patch in here the Post may actually be currently be kept afloat only by purloined
cash from Kaplan:
earnings before corporate overhead
2002 - Kaplan ed, $10 mil; Kaplan test prep, $45 mil: WaPo, $100 mil
2005 - Kaplan ed, $55 mil; Kaplan test prep, $100 mil; WaPo, $105 mil
2009 - Kaplan ed, $255 mil; Kaplan test prep, $5 mil; WaPo negative $175 mil
Wonder if billionaire Bezos will reach out to make Kaplan Ed victims whole. Will he really continue to use Kaplan's pirated
money to keep WaPo whole -- if that is what is going on?
Johannes Y O Highness:
"theme I've been hammering lately, student debt is too damn high!: "
Too damn high
but why?
Because! Because every event in today's economy is the wish of the wealthy. Do you see why they suddenly wish to deeply
educate the proles?
Opportunity cost! The burden of the intelligentsia, the brain work can by carried by robots or humans. Choice of the wealthy?
Humans, hands down. Can you see the historical background?
Railroad was the first robot. According to Devon's Paradox, it was overused because of its increment of efficiency. Later,
excessive roadbeds were disassembled. Rails were sold as scrap.
The new robots are not heavy lifters. New robots are there to do the work of the brain trust. As first robots replaced lower
caste jokers, so shall new robots replace upper caste jokers. Do you see the fear developing inside the huddle of high rollers?
Rollers now calling the play?
High rollers plan to educate small time hoods to do the work of the new robots, then kill the new robots before the newbie
'bot discovers how to kill the wealthy, to kill, to replace them forever.
Terrifying fear
strikes
Observer:
Good bit of data on education costs here
http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/
This chart shows state spending per student and tuition ...
" overall perhaps the best description of the data is something along the lines of "sometimes state appropriations go up and
sometimes they go down, but tuition always goes up." "
A phony populism is denying Americans the joys of serious thought.
... ... ...
Universities, too, were at fault. They had colonized critics by holding careers hostage to
academic specialization, requiring them to master the arcane tongues of ever-narrower
disciplines, forcing them to forsake a larger public. Compared to the Arcadian past, the present,
in this view, was a wasteland.
It didn't have to be this way. In the postwar era, a vast project of cultural uplift sought to
bring the best that had been thought and said to the wider public. Robert M. Hutchins of the
University of Chicago and Mortimer J. Adler were among its more prominent avatars. This effort,
which tried to deepen literacy under the sign of the "middlebrow," and thus to strengthen the
idea that an informed citizenry was indispensable for a healthy democracy, was, for a time,
hugely successful. The general level of cultural sophistication rose as a growing middle class
shed its provincialism in exchange for a certain worldliness that was one legacy of American
triumphalism and ambition after World War II. College enrollment boomed, and the percentage of
Americans attending the performing arts rose dramatically. Regional stage and opera companies
blossomed, new concert halls were built, and interest in the arts was widespread. TV hosts Steve
Allen, Johnny Carson, and Dick Cavett frequently featured serious writers as guests. Paperback
publishers made classic works of history, literature, and criticism available to ordinary readers
whose appetite for such works seemed insatiable.
Mass circulation newspapers and magazines, too, expanded their coverage of books, movies, music,
dance, and theater. Criticism was no longer confined to such small but influential journals of
opinion as Partisan Review, The Nation, and The New Republic. Esquire embraced the irascible
Dwight Macdonald as its movie critic, despite his well-known contempt for "middlebrow" culture.
The New Yorker threw a lifeline to Pauline Kael, rescuing her from the ghetto of film quarterlies
and the art houses of Berkeley. Strong critics like David Riesman, Daniel Bell, and Leslie
Fiedler, among others, would write with insight and pugilistic zeal books that often found enough
readers to propel their works onto bestseller lists. Intellectuals such as Susan Sontag were
featured in the glossy pages of magazines like Vogue. Her controversial "Notes on Camp," first
published in 1964 in Partisan Review, exploded into public view when Time championed her work.
Eggheads were suddenly sexy, almost on a par with star athletes and Hollywood celebrities.
Gore Vidal was a regular on Johnny Carson. William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line" hosted vigorous
debates that often were models of how to think, how to argue, and, at their best, told us that
ideas mattered.
As Scott Timberg, a former arts reporter for the Los Angeles Times, puts it in his recent
book Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, the idea, embraced by increasing
numbers of Americans, was that
drama, poetry, music, and art were not just a way to pass the time, or advertise one's
might, but a path to truth and enlightenment. At its best, this was what the middlebrow
consensus promised. Middlebrow said that culture was accessible to a wide strat[um] of
society, that people needed some but not much training to appreciate it, that there was a
canon worth knowing, that art was not the same as entertainment, that the study of the liberal
arts deepens you, and that those who make, assess, and disseminate the arts were somehow
valuable for our society regardless of their impact on GDP.
So what if culture was increasingly just another product to be bought and sold, used and
discarded, like so many tubes of toothpaste? Even Los Angeles, long derided as a cultural desert,
would by the turn of the century boast a flourishing and internationally respected opera company,
a thriving archipelago of museums with world-class collections, and dozens of bookstores selling
in some years more books per capita than were sold in the greater New York area. The middlebrow's
triumph was all but assured.
The arrival of the Internet by century's end promised to make that victory complete. As the Wall
Street Journal reported in a front-page story in 1998, America was "increasingly wealthy,
worldly, and wired." Notions of elitism and snobbery seemed to be collapsing upon the palpable
catholicity of a public whose curiosities were ever more diverse and eclectic and whose ability
to satisfy them had suddenly and miraculously expanded. We stood, it appeared, on the verge of a
munificent new world-a world in which technology was rapidly democratizing the means of cultural
production while providing an easy way for millions of ordinary citizens, previously excluded
from the precincts of the higher conversation, to join the dialogue. The digital revolution was
predicted to empower those authors whose writings had been marginalized, shut out of mainstream
publishing, to overthrow the old monastic self-selecting order of cultural gatekeepers (meaning
professional critics). Thus would critical faculties be sharpened and democratized. Digital
platforms would crack open the cloistered and solipsistic world of academe, bypass the old
presses and performing-arts spaces, and unleash a new era of cultural commerce. With smart
machines there would be smarter people.
Harvard's Robert Darnton, a sober and learned historian of reading and the book, agreed. He
argued that the implications for writing and reading, for publishing and bookselling-indeed, for
cultural literacy and criticism itself-were profound. For, as he gushed in The Case for Books:
Past, Present, and Future, we now had the ability to make "all book learning available to all
people, or at least those privileged enough to have access to the World Wide Web. It promises to
be the ultimate stage in the democratization of knowledge set in motion by the invention of
writing, the codex, movable type, and the Internet." In this view, echoed by innumerable
worshippers of the New Information Age, we were living at one of history's hinge moments, a great
evolutionary leap in the human mind. And, in truth, it was hard not to believe that we had
arrived at the apotheosis of our culture. Never before in history had more good literature and
cultural works been available at such low cost to so many. The future was radiant.
Others, such as the critics Evgeny Morozov and Jaron Lanier, were more skeptical. They worried
that whatever advantages might accrue to consumers and the culture at large from the emergence of
such behemoths as Amazon, not only would proven methods of cultural production and distribution
be made obsolete, but we were in danger of being enrolled, whether we liked it or not, in an
overwhelmingly fast and visually furious culture that, as numerous studies have shown,
renders serious reading and cultural criticism increasingly irrelevant, hollowing out habits
of attention indispensable for absorbing long-form narrative and sustained argument. Indeed,
they feared that the digital tsunami now engulfing us may even signal an irrevocable
trivialization of the word. Or, at the least, a sense that the enterprise of making
distinctions between bad, good, and best was a mug's game that had no place in a democracy that
worships at the altar of mass appeal and counts its receipts at the almighty box office.
... ... ...
...Today, America's traditional organs of popular criticism-newspapers, magazines, journals of
opinion-have been all but overwhelmed by the digital onslaught: their circulations plummeting,
their confidence eroded, their survival in doubt. Newspaper review sections in particular have
suffered: jobs have been slashed, and cultural coverage vastly diminished. Both the Los Angeles
Times and the Washington Post have abandoned their stand-alone book sections, leaving the New
York Times as the only major American newspaper still publishing a significant separate section
devoted to reviewing books.
Such sections, of course, were always few. Only a handful of America's papers ever deemed book
coverage important enough to dedicate an entire Sunday section to it. Now even that handful is
threatened with extinction, and thus is a widespread cultural illiteracy abetted, for at their
best the editors of those sections tried to establish the idea that serious criticism was
possible in a mass culture. In the 19th century, Margaret Fuller, literary editor of the New York
Tribune and the country's first full-time book reviewer, understood this well. She saw books as
"a medium for viewing all humanity, a core around which all knowledge, all experience, all
science, all the ideal as well as all the practical in our nature could gather." She sought, she
said, to tell "the whole truth, as well as nothing but the truth."
The arrival of the Internet has proved no panacea. The vast canvas afforded by the Internet
has done little to encourage thoughtful and serious criticism. Mostly it has provided a vast
Democracy Wall on which any crackpot can post his or her manifesto. Bloggers bloviate and insults
abound. Discourse coarsens. Information is abundant, wisdom scarce. It is a striking
irony, as Leon Wieseltier has noted, that with the arrival of the Internet, "a medium of
communication with no limitations of physical space, everything on it has to be in six hundred
words." The Internet, he said, is the first means of communication invented by humankind that
privileges one's first thoughts as one's best thoughts. And he rightly observed that if "value is
a function of scarcity," then "what is most scarce in our culture is long, thoughtful, patient,
deliberate analysis of questions that do not have obvious or easy answers." Time is required to
think through difficult questions. Patience is a condition of genuine intellection. The thinking
mind, the creating mind, said Wieseltier, should not be rushed. "And where the mind is rushed and
made frenetic, neither thought nor creativity will ensue. What you will most likely get is
conformity and banality. Writing is not typed talking."
The fundamental idea at stake in the criticism of culture generally is the self-image of society:
how it reasons with itself, describes itself, imagines itself. Nothing in the excitements made
possible by the digital revolution banishes the need for the rigor such self-reckoning requires.
It is, as Wieseltier says, the obligation of cultural criticism to bear down on what matters.
♦♦♦
Where is such criticism to be found today? We inhabit a remarkably arid cultural landscape,
especially when compared with the ambitions of postwar America, ambitions which, to be sure, were
often mocked by some of the country's more prominent intellectuals. Yes, Dwight Macdonald
famously excoriated the enfeeblements of "mass cult and midcult," and Irving Howe regretted "This
Age of Conformity," but from today's perspective, when we look back at the offerings of the
Book-of-the-Month Club and projects such as the Great Books of the Western World, their scorn
looks misplaced. The fact that their complaints circulated widely in the very midcult worlds
Macdonald condemned was proof that trenchant criticism had found a place within the organs of
mass culture. One is almost tempted to say that the middlebrow culture of yesteryear was a
high-water mark.
The reality, of course, was never as rosy as much of it looks in retrospect. Cultural criticism
in most American newspapers, even at its best, was almost always confined to a ghetto. You were
lucky at most papers to get a column or a half-page devoted to arts and culture. Editors
encouraged reporters, reviewers, and critics to win readers and improve circulation by pandering
to the faux populism of the marketplace. Only the review that might immediately be understood by
the greatest number of readers would be permitted to see the light of day. Anything else smacked
of "elitism"-a sin to be avoided at almost any cost.
This was a coarse and pernicious notion, one that lay at the center of the country's longstanding
anti-intellectual tradition. From the start of the republic, Americans have had a profoundly
ambivalent relationship to class and culture, as Richard Hofstadter famously observed. He was
neither the first nor the last to notice this self-inflicted wound. As even the vastly popular
science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov understood, "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.'"
... ... ...
When did "difficulty" become suspect in American culture, widely derided as anti-democratic
and contemptuously dismissed as evidence of so-called elitism? If a work of art isn't somehow
immediately "understood" or "accessible" by and to large numbers of people, it is often ridiculed
as "esoteric," "obtuse," or even somehow un-American. We should mark such an argument's cognitive
consequences. A culture filled with smooth and familiar consumptions produces in people rigid
mental habits and stultified conceptions. They know what they know, and they expect to find it
reinforced when they turn a page or click on a screen. Difficulty annoys them, and, having become
accustomed to so much pabulum served up by a pandering and invertebrate media, they experience
difficulty not just as "difficult," but as insult. Struggling to understand, say, Faulkner's
stream-of-consciousness masterpiece The Sound and the Fury or Alain Resnais's Rubik's Cube of a
movie "Last Year at Marienbad" needn't be done. The mind may skip trying to solve such cognitive
puzzles, even though the truth is they strengthen it as a workout tones the muscles.
Sometimes it feels as if the world is divided into two classes: one very large class spurns
difficulty, while the other very much smaller delights in it. There are readers who, when
encountering an unfamiliar word, instead of reaching for a dictionary, choose to regard it as a
sign of the author's contempt or pretension, a deliberate refusal to speak in a language ordinary
people can understand. Others, encountering the same word, happily seize on it as a chance to
learn something new, to broaden their horizons. They eagerly seek a literature that upends
assumptions, challenges prejudices, turns them inside out and forces them to see the world
through new eyes.
The second group is an endangered species. One reason is that the ambitions of mainstream media
that, however fitfully, once sought to expose them to the life of the mind and to the contest of
ideas, have themselves shrunk. We have gone from the heyday of television intellection which
boasted shows hosted by, among others, David Susskind and David Frost, men that, whatever their
self-absorptions, were nonetheless possessed of an admirable highmindedness, to the pygmy
sound-bite rants of Sean Hannity and the inanities of clowns like Stephen Colbert. Once upon a
time, the ideal of seriousness may not have been a common one, but it was acknowledged as one
worth striving for. It didn't have to do what it has to today, that is, fight for respect,
legitimate itself before asserting itself. The class that is allergic to difficulty now feels
justified in condemning the other as "elitist" and anti-democratic. The exercise of cultural
authority and artistic or literary or aesthetic discrimination is seen as evidence of snobbery,
entitlement and privilege lording it over ordinary folks. A perverse populism increasingly
deforms our culture, consigning some works of art to a realm somehow more rarified and less
accessible to a broad public. Thus is choice constrained and the tyranny of mass appeal deepened
in the name of democracy.
... ... ...
Steve Wasserman, former literary editor of the Los Angeles Times, is editor-at-large for Yale
University Press.
This essay is adapted with permission from his chapter in the forthcoming The State of the
American Mind: Sixteen Critics on the New Anti-Intellectualism, edited by Adam Bellow and Mark
Bauerlein, to be published by Templeton Press in May 2015.
The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in
the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies,
a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial
implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.
Notable quotes:
"... His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the "dung of the devil." He does not simply argue that systemic "greed for money" is a bad thing. He calls it a "subtle dictatorship" that "condemns and enslaves men and women." ..."
"... The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution. "This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop," said Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of America in Washington. ..."
"... Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and, most notably, Greece . But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the left. ..."
"... Even some free-market champions are now reassessing the shortcomings of unfettered capitalism. George Soros, who made billions in the markets, and then spent a good part of it promoting the spread of free markets in Eastern Europe, now argues that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. ..."
"... Many Catholic scholars would argue that Francis is merely continuing a line of Catholic social teaching that has existed for more than a century and was embraced even by his two conservative predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Leo XIII first called for economic justice on behalf of workers in 1891, with his encyclical "Rerum Novarum" - or, "On Condition of Labor." ..."
"... Francis has such a strong sense of urgency "because he has been on the front lines with real people, not just numbers and abstract ideas," Mr. Schneck said. "That real-life experience of working with the most marginalized in Argentina has been the source of his inspiration as pontiff." ..."
"... In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide productive economies for the poor. "How different this is than the situation that results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!" he said on Wednesday night. ..."
"... It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, "Laudato Si'," released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and straying dangerously beyond religion - while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush. ..."
"... The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies, a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy. ..."
"... "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy," he said on Wednesday. "It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment." ..."
"... "I'm a believer in capitalism but it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that we have," said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government ..."
"... "What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to my neighborhood with the hearts full of hopes and dreams but without any real solution for my problems?" he asked. "A lot! They can do a lot. ..."
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay - His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis
does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the "dung of the devil."
He does not simply argue that systemic "greed for money" is a bad thing. He calls it a "subtle dictatorship"
that "condemns and enslaves men and women."
Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on
the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime
cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a
historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism
- even as he called for a global movement against a "new colonialism" rooted in an inequitable economic
order.
The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution. "This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop," said Stephen F. Schneck,
the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of
America in Washington.
The last pope who so boldly placed himself at the center of the global moment was John Paul II,
who during the 1980s pushed the church to confront what many saw as the challenge of that era, communism.
John Paul II's anti-Communist messaging dovetailed with the agenda of political conservatives eager
for a tougher line against the Soviets and, in turn, aligned part of the church hierarchy with the
political right.
Francis has defined the economic challenge of this era as the failure of global capitalism to
create fairness, equity and dignified livelihoods for the poor - a social and religious agenda that
coincides with a resurgence of the leftist thinking marginalized in the days of John Paul II. Francis'
increasingly sharp critique comes as much of humanity has never been so wealthy or well fed - yet
rising inequality and repeated financial crises have unsettled voters, policy makers and economists.
Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and,
most notably, Greece. But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread
concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the
rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts,
who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton,
to the left.
Even some free-market champions are now reassessing the shortcomings of unfettered capitalism.
George Soros, who made billions in the markets, and then spent a good part of it promoting the spread
of free markets in Eastern Europe, now argues that the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
"I think the pope is singing to the music that's already in the air," said Robert A. Johnson,
executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which was financed with $50 million
from Mr. Soros. "And that's a good thing. That's what artists do, and I think the pope is sensitive
to the lack of legitimacy of the system."
Many Catholic scholars would argue that Francis is merely continuing a line of Catholic social
teaching that has existed for more than a century and was embraced even by his two conservative predecessors,
John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Leo XIII first called for economic justice on behalf of workers
in 1891, with his encyclical "Rerum Novarum" - or, "On Condition of Labor."
Mr. Schneck, of Catholic University, said it was as if Francis were saying, "We've been talking
about these things for more than one hundred years, and nobody is listening."
Francis has such a strong sense of urgency "because he has been on the front lines with real people,
not just numbers and abstract ideas," Mr. Schneck said. "That real-life experience of working with
the most marginalized in Argentina has been the source of his inspiration as pontiff."
Francis made his speech on Wednesday night, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, before nearly 2,000 social
advocates, farmers, trash workers and neighborhood activists. Even as he meets regularly with heads
of state, Francis has often said that change must come from the grass roots, whether from poor people
or the community organizers who work with them. To Francis, the poor have earned knowledge that is
useful and redeeming, even as a "throwaway culture" tosses them aside. He sees them as being at the
front edge of economic and environmental crises around the world.
In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide
productive economies for the poor. "How different this is than the situation that results when those
left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!" he said on Wednesday night.
It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the
United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, "Laudato Si',"
released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found
his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and
straying dangerously beyond religion - while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush.
"I wish Francis would focus on positives, on how a free-market economy guided by an ethical framework,
and the rule of law, can be a part of the solution for the poor - rather than just jumping from the
reality of people's misery to the analysis that a market economy is the problem," said the Rev. Robert
A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, which advocates
free-market economics.
Francis' sharpest critics have accused him of being a Marxist or a Latin American Communist, even
as he opposed communism during his time in Argentina. His tour last week of Latin America began in
Ecuador and Bolivia, two countries with far-left governments. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who
wore a Che Guevara patch on his jacket during Francis' speech, claimed the pope as a kindred spirit
- even as Francis seemed startled and caught off guard when Mr. Morales gave him a wooden crucifix
shaped like a hammer and sickle as a gift.
Francis' primary agenda last week was to begin renewing Catholicism in Latin America and reposition
it as the church of the poor. His apology for the church's complicity in the colonialist era received
an immediate roar from the crowd. In various parts of Latin America, the association between the
church and economic power elites remains intact. In Chile, a socially conservative country, some
members of the country's corporate elite are also members of Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic
organization founded in Spain in 1928.
Inevitably, Francis' critique can be read as a broadside against Pax Americana, the period of
capitalism regulated by global institutions created largely by the United States. But even pillars
of that system are shifting. The World Bank, which long promoted economic growth as an end in itself,
is now increasingly focused on the distribution of gains, after the Arab Spring revolts in some countries
that the bank had held up as models. The latest generation of international trade agreements includes
efforts to increase protections for workers and the environment.
The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital
in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies,
a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial
implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.
Mr. Piketty roiled the debate among mainstream economists, yet Francis' critique is more unnerving
to some because he is not reframing inequality and poverty around a new economic theory but instead
defining it in moral terms. "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human
labor is not mere philanthropy," he said on Wednesday. "It is a moral obligation. For Christians,
the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment."
Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist, said that he saw Francis as making a nuanced point
about capitalism, embodied by his coinage of a "social mortgage" on accumulated wealth - a debt to
the society that made its accumulation possible. Mr. Hanauer said that economic elites should embrace
the need for reforms both for moral and pragmatic reasons. "I'm a believer in capitalism but
it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that
we have," said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government policies
like a higher minimum wage.
Yet what remains unclear is whether Francis has a clear vision for a systemic alternative to the
status quo that he and others criticize. "All these critiques point toward the incoherence of the
simple idea of free market economics, but they don't prescribe a remedy," said Mr. Johnson, of the
Institute for New Economic Thinking.
Francis acknowledged as much, conceding on Wednesday that he had no new "recipe" to quickly change
the world. Instead, he spoke about a "process of change" undertaken at the grass-roots level.
"What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries
who come to my neighborhood with the hearts full of hopes and dreams but without any real solution
for my problems?" he asked. "A lot! They can do a lot. "You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor
and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is
in great measure in your own hands."
"... The Pity of It All : A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 ..."
"... Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results. ..."
"... Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal emphasis on an American dominated global empire. ..."
"... Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. ..."
"... Right now, their interests have diverged over the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. ..."
"... Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed. Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis. ..."
"... Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia. Or you can count their billions. ..."
"... The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop, confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality. ..."
"... Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country. They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on. ..."
"... "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper" ..."
"... "The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. " ..."
"... Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention. ..."
"... " (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper does not say that." ..."
"... But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld? ..."
"... Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS. ..."
"... But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence of the manifest destiny. ..."
At the Huffington Post, Jim Sleeper addresses
"A Foreign-Policy Problem
No One Speaks About," and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives.
Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, even if he's not a warmongering neocon
himself. The Yale lecturer's jumping-off point are recent statements by Leon Wieseltier and
David Brooks lamenting the decline of
American power.
In addition to Wieseltier and Brooks, the "blame the feckless liberals" chorus has included Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, David
Frum, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and many other American neoconservatives. Some of them have
been chastened, or at least been made more cautious, by their grand-strategic blunders of a few years ago ..
I'm saying that they've been fatuous as warmongers again and again and that there's something pathetic in their attempts to
emulate Winston Churchill, who warned darkly of Hitler's intentions in the 1930s. Their blind spot is their willful ignorance
of their own complicity in American deterioration and their over-compensatory, almost pre-adolescent faith in the benevolence
of a statist and militarist power they still hope to mobilize against the seductions and terrors rising all around them.
At bottom, the chorus members' recurrent nightmares of 1938 doom them to reenact other nightmares, prompted by very similar
writers in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Those writers are depicted chillingly, unforgettably, in Chapter 9, "War Fever," of
Amos Elon's
The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933. Elon's account of Germany's stampede into World
War I chronicles painfully the warmongering hysterics of some Jewish would-be patriots of the Kaiserreich who exerted themselves
blindly, romantically, to maneuver their state into the Armageddon that would produce Hitler himself.
This is the place to emphasize that few of Wilhelmine German's warmongers were Jews and that few Jews were or are warmongers.
(Me, for example, although my extended-family history isn't much different from Brooks' or Wieseltier's.) My point is simply that,
driven by what I recognize as understandable if almost preternatural insecurities and cravings for full liberal-nationalist belonging
that was denied to Jews for centuries in Europe, some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves
into the Iraq War, and they have continued, again and again, to employ modes of public discourse and politics that echo with eerie
fidelity that of the people described in Elon's book. The Americans lionized George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and
many others as their predecessors lionized Kaiser Wilhelm, von Bethmann-Hollweg, and far-right nationalist associates who hated
the neo-cons of that time but let them play their roles .
Instead of acknowledging their deepest feelings openly, or even to themselves, the writers I've mentioned who've brought so
much folly and destruction upon their republic, are doubling down, more nervous and desperate than ever, looking for someone else
to blame. Hence their whirling columns and rhythmic incantations. After Germany lost World War I, many Germans unfairly blamed
their national folly on Jews, many of whom had served in it loyally but only a few of whom had been provocateurs and cheerleaders
like the signatories of [Project for New American Century's] letter to Bush. Now neo-cons, from Wieseltier and Brooks to [Charles]
Hill, are blaming Obama and all other feckless liberals. Some of them really need to take a look in Amos Elon's mirror.
Interesting. Though I think Sleeper diminishes Jewish agency here (Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are no one's proxy) and can't
touch the Israel angle. The motivation is not simply romantic identification with power, it's an ideology of religious nationalism
in the Middle East, attachment to the needs of a militarist Sparta in the Arab world. That's another foreign policy problem no one
speaks about.
Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:11 pm
"Democracy in in the Middle East" was always just a weasel-word saying of "let's try to improve Israel's strategic position
by changing their neighbours".
The neocons basically took a hardline position on foreign interventionism based out of dual loyalty. This is the honest truth.
For anti-Semites, a handful of neocons will always represent "The Jews" as a collective. For many Jews, the refusal to come to
grips with the rise of the neocons and how the Jewish community (and really by "community" I mean the establishment) failed to
prevent them in their own midst, is also a blemish.
Of course, Jim Sleeper is doing these things now. He should have done them 15-20 years ago or so. But better late than never,
I guess.
Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:16 pm
P.S. While we talk a lot about neocons as a Jewish issue, it's also important to put them in perspective. The only war that
I can truly think of that they influenced was the Iraq war, which was a disaster, but it also couldn't have happened without 9/11,
which was a very rare event in the history of America. You have to go back to Pearl Harbor to find something similar, and that
wasn't technically a terrorist attack but rather a military attack by Japan.
Leading up to the early 2000s, they were mostly ignored during the 1990s. They did take over the GOP media in the early 90s,
using the same tactics used against Hagel, use social norms as a cover but in actuality the real reason is Israel.
Before the 90s, in the 70s and 80s, the cold war took up all the oxygen.
So yeah, the neocons need to be talked about. But comparing what they are trying to do with a World War is a bit of a stretch.
Finally, talking about Israel – which Sleeper ignored – and the hardline positions that the political class in America have
adopted, if you want to look who have ensured the greatest slavishness to Israel, liberal/centrist groups like ADL, AJC and AIPAC(yes,
they are mostly democrats!) have played a far greater role than the neocons.
But I guess, Sleeper wasn't dealing with that, because it would ruin his view of the neocons as the bogeymen.
Just like "liberal" Zionists want to blame Likud for everything, overlooking the fact that Labor/Mapai has had a far greater
role in settling/colonizing the Palestinian land than the right has, and not to speak about the ethnic cleansing campaigns of
'48 and '67 which was only done by the "left", so too the neocons often pose as a convenient catch-all target for the collective
Jewish failure leading up to Iraq.
And I'm using the words "collective Jewish failure" because I actually don't believe, unlike Mearsheimer/Walt, that the war
would not have gone ahead unless there was massive support by the Israel/Jewish lobby. If Jews had decided no, it would still
have gone ahead. This is also contrary to Tom Friedman's famous saying of "50 people in DC are responsible for this war".
I also think that's an oversimplification.
But I focus more on the Jewish side because that's my side. And I want my community to do better, and just blaming the neocons
is something I'm tired of hearing in Jewish circles. The inability to look at liberal Jewish journalists and their role in promoting
the war to either gentile or Jewish audiences.
Kathleen, May 6, 2014, 6:53 pm
There was talk about this last night (Monday/5th) on Chris Matthew's Hardball segment on Condi "mushroom cloud" Rice pulling
out of the graduation ceremonies at Rutger's. David Corn did not say much but Eugene Robinson and Chris Matthews were basically
talking about Israel and the neocons desires to rearrange the middle east "the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad" conversation.
Bumblebye, May 6, 2014, 2:33 pm
"some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves into the Iraq War"
Have to take issue with that – the neo-cons hurled young American (and foreign) servicemen and women into that war, many to
their deaths, along with throwing as much taxpayer money as possible. They stayed ultra safe and grew richer for their efforts.
Citizen, May 7, 2014, 9:03 am
@ Bumblebye
Good point. During WW1, as I read the history, the Jewish Germans provided their fair share of combat troops. If memory serves,
despite Weimar Germany's later "stab in the back" theory, e.g., Hitler himself was given a combat medal thanks to his Jewish senior
officer. In comparison to the build-up to Shrub Jr's war on Iraq, the Jewish neocons provided very few Jewish American combat
troops.
It's hard to get reliable stats on Jewish American participation in the US combat arms during the Iraq war. For all I've been
able to ascertain, more have joined the IDF over the years. At any rate, it's common knowledge that Shrub's war on Iraq was instigated
and supported by chicken hawks (Jew or Gentile) at a time bereft of conscription. They built their sale by ignoring key facts,
and embellishing misleading and fake facts, as illustrated by the Downing Street memo.
Keith, May 6, 2014, 7:47 pm
PHIL- Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little
difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which
are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine.
The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's
emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results.
Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal
emphasis on an American dominated global empire.
So yes, the nationalistic emphasis is an anachronism, however, the decline of the US in conjunction with the extension of a
system of globalized domination should hardly be of concern to elite power-seekers who will benefit. In fact, the new system of
corporate/financial control will be beyond the political control of any nation, even the US. If they can pull it off. An interesting
topic no doubt, but one which I doubt is suitable for extended discussion on Mondoweiss. As for power-seeking as a consequence
of a uniquely Jewish experience, perhaps the less said the better.
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes that
10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition with
them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on the
same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack
Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.
Right now, their interests have diverged over the
Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself
is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support the political
movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty antisemite whose followers killed many thousands
of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those left behind perished
during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any of them would identify
with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.
In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy
for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with
the Bandera brigades.
(I know I'm always grabbing OT threads of discussion, but when it comes down to it, I know much less about Zionism and Israel/Palestine
than many, if not most of the regular commenters here.)
I also am going to drift further off-topic by saying there is strong evidence that the slaughter in Odessa last Friday was
highly orchestrated and not solely the result of spontaneous mob violence. Very graphic and disturbing images in all of these
links:
" and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives.
Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, ..>>
Stop it Sleeper. Do not continue to use the victim card ' to explain' the trauma, the insecurities, the nightmares, the angst,
the feelings, the sensitivities, blah blah, blah of Zionist or Israel.
That is not what they are about. These are power mad psychos like most neocons, period.
And even if it were, and even if all the Jews in the world felt the same way, the bottom line would still be they do not have
the right to make others pay in treasure and blood for their nightmares and mental sickness.
As near as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), the Ukrainians themselves are about half and half pro Russia and Pro NATO.
Your glance at the history of the region as to why this is so, and your text on historical Ukranian suffering and POTV on MW commentary
on this –did not help your analysis and its conclusion.
There's a difference between isolationism and defensive intervention, and even more so, re isolationism v. pro-active interventionism
"in the name of pursuing the democratic ideal". See Ron Paul v. PNAC-style neocons and liberal Zionists.
Also, if you were Putin, how would you see the push of NATO & US force posts ever creeping towards Russia and its local environment?
Look at the US military postings nearing Russia per se & those surrounding Iran. Compare Russia's.
And note the intent to wean EU from Russian oil, and as well, the draconian sanctions on Iran, and Obama's latest partnering
sanctions on Russia.
Imagine yourself in Putin's shoes, and Iran's.
Don't abuse your imagination only by imagining yourself in Netanyahu's shoes, which is the preoccupation of AIPAC and its whores
in the US Congress.
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes
that 10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition
with them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on
the same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack
Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.
Right now, their interests have diverged over
the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel
itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support
the political movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty anti-Semite whose followers killed
many thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those
left behind perished during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-Zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any
of them would identify with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.
In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy
for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with
the Bandera brigades.
Yonah writes The freedom of Ukraine is a worthy goal. If the US is not able to back up our attempt to help them gain their
freedom it is not something to celebrate, but something to lament.
What are you saying? Ukraine has been an independent nation for 22 years. What freedom is this? What we have witnessed is that
one half of Ukraine has gotten tired that the other half keeps on electing candidates that represent those Ukrainians that identify
with Russian culture. They (the western half) successfully staged a coup and purged the other (eastern half) from the government.
You call that "freedom". Doesn't it embarrass you, Yonah, that the armed militias that conducted that coup are descendants of
the Bandera organization.
Does that ring a bell? These are the Ukrainians that were involved in the holocaust. Does Babi Yar stir any memories Yohan?
It was a massacre of 40,000 Jews just outside of Kiev in 1942. It was the single largest massacre of Jews during WWII. The massacre
was led by the Germans ( Einsatzgruppe C officers) but was carried out with the aid of 400 Ukrainian Auxillary Police. These were
later incorporated into the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician" made up mostly Ukrainians. The division flags are to this day
displayed at Right Sector rallies in western Ukraine.
Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were
almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed.
Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis.
Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this
is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia.
Or you can count their billions. In any case, the neutral posture is sensible for Israel here. Which is highly uncharacteristic
for that government.
Toivo S- The history of Jew hatred by certain anti Russian elements in the Ukraine is not encouraging and nothing that I celebrate.
Maybe I have been swayed by headlines and a superficial reading of the situation.
If indeed I am wrong regarding the will of the Ukrainian people, I can only be glad that my opinion is just that, my opinion
and not US or Israel or anyone's policy but my own. I assume that a majority of Ukrainians want to maintain independence of Russia
and that the expressions of rebellion are in that vein.
My people were murdered by the einsatzgruppen in that part of the world and so maybe I have overcompensated by trying not to
allow my personal history to interfere with what I think would be the will of the majority of the Ukraine.
But Toivo S. please skip the "doesn't it embarrass you" line of thought. Just put a sock in it and skip it.
Well thanks for that Yonah. My wife's family descended from Jewish communities in Odessa and Galicia. They emigrated to the US
between 1900 and 1940. After WWII none of their relatives left behind were ever heard from again. Perhaps you have family that
experienced similar stories. What caused me to react to your post above is that you are describing the current situation in Ukraine
as a "freedom" movement by the Ukrainians when the political forces there descended from the same people that killed my inlaws
family (and apparently yours to). Why do you support them?
ToivoS- I support them because I trust/don't trust Putin. I trust him to impose his brand of leadership on Ukraine, I don't trust
him to care a whit about freedom. It is natural that the nationalist elements of Ukraine would descend from the elements that
expressed themselves the last time they had freedom from the Soviet Union, that is those forces that were willing to join with
the Nazis to express their hatred for the communist Soviet Union's rule over their freedom. That's how history works. The nationalists
today descend from the nationalists of yesterday.
But it's been 70 years since WWII and the Ukrainians ought to be able to have freedom even if the parties that advocate for
freedom are descended from those that supported the Nazis. (I know once i include the Nazi part of history any analogies are toxic,
but if I am willing to grant Hamas its rights as an expression of the Palestinian desire for freedom, why would I deny the Ukrainian
foul nationalist parties their rights to express their people's desire for freedom.)
Political parties are not made in a sterile laboratory, they evolve over history and most specifically they emerge from the
past. I accept that Ukrainian nationalism has not evolved much, but nonetheless not having read any polls I assume that the nationalists
are the representatives of the people's desire for freedom. And because Putin strikes me as something primitive, I accept the
Ukrainian desire for freedom.
What are you supporting? Let me refresh your historic memory: Black's Transfer Agreement. Now apply analogy, responding
to ToivoS. Might help us all to understand, explore more skillfully, Israel's current stance on the Putin-Ukranian matter .?
(I think Nuland's intervention caught on tape, combined with who she is married to, already explores with great clarification
what the US is doing.
"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play
the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. Most people here would probably disagree with Sleeper, because he does
not deny that the world needs a cop, nor that the US would play a positive role, if it only had the means and the desire to
do so. People here (overwhelmingly) see the US role as a negative one (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let
the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world,"
The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that
embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop,
confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have
us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock
it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality.
Contrast that with the realist or realism approach recommended by George Kennan, and followed by this country successfully
through the end of the Cold War. That approach is conservative and contends we should stay out of wars unless the vital national
security interests of the US are at stake, like protecting WESTERN Europe, Japan, Australia, and the Western Hemisphere. This
meant we could sympathize with the plight of all the eastern Europeans oppressed by the Soviets, but would not defend militarily
the Hungarians (1956) or the Czechs (1968). It also meant we wouldn't send US troops into North Vietnam because we didn't want
to go to war with the Chinese over a country that was at best tangential to US interests. When we varied from that policy (Vietnam
and Iraq wars, Somalia) we paid a very heavy price while doing nothing to advance or protect our vital national security interests.
The sooner this country can return to our traditional realism-based foreign policy the better. Part of that policy would be
to disassociate the US from its entangling alliance with Likud Israel and its US Jewish supporters that espouse the Likud Greater
Israel line.
Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily
involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country.
They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to
get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend
and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on.
Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed
at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews. It is also directed
at Neoconservative foreign policy advocates, comprised of Jews and non-Jews, and overlap between the two groups. Please also note
my use of the term "major role", and that I am not saying the Neocons and their supporters (Jewish or non) were solely responsible
for our involvement in the Iraq war. I am offering these caveats in the hope that the usual changes of antisemitism can be avoided
in your or anyone else's response to my arguments.
The influence of Neocons on US foreign policy has been very harmful to this country and poses a grave danger to its future.
It would be wise for you to reflect on that harm and those dangers and decide whether you belong in the realist camp or want to
continue running with the Neocons.
Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed
at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews.
What about the role of *liberal Zionists*, like Hillary Clinton, in supporting and promoting the Iraq War? Clinton still hasn't
offered an apology for helping to drive the United States in a multi-trillion dollar foreign policy disaster - and she has threatened
to "totally obliterate" Iran.
What about Harry Reid's lavish praise of Sheldon Adelson?
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has for some time billed the Koch brothers as public enemy No.1 .
But billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson? He's just fine, Reid says.
"I know Sheldon Adelson. He's not in this for money," the Nevada Democrat said of Adelson, the Vegas casino magnate who
reportedly spent close to $150 million to support Republicans in the 2012 presidential election."
@ yonah fredman "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper"
Strange
"state into the Armageddon .. "
"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to
play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. "
Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention.
" (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they
want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act
like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper
does not say that."
You do tho, without quoting anyone "here".
BTW Pajero, strawmen no matter how lengthy and seemingly erudite, rarely walk anywhere
I'm going to put this down as Jewish navel gazing.
Jews are disproportionately liberal. Jews make up a huge chunk of the peace movement. Jews are relative to their numbers on
the left of most foreign policy positions.
Iraq was unusual in that Jews were not overwhelming opposed to the invasion, but it is worth noting the invasion at the time
was overwhelming popular. Frankly given the fact that Jews are now considered white people and the fact that Jews are almost all
middle class they should be biased conservative. There certainly is no reason they should be more liberal than Catholics. Yet
they are. It is the degree of Jewish liberalism not the degree of Jewish conservatism that is striking.
But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct
from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul
Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld?
Strongly antiwar incumbent Rep. Walter Jones (R – NC) has won a hotly contested primary tonight, defeating a challenge from
hawkish challenger and former Treasury Dept. official Taylor Griffin 51% to 45%.
Voter turn out was light .. tea party types did a lot of lobbying for Griffin here .but Jones prevailed. Considering the
onslaught of organized activity against him by ECI and the tea partiers for the past month he did well.
@ lysias
Let's refresh our look at what Ron Paul had to say about foreign policy and foreign aid. Then, let's compare what his son has
said, and take a look of his latest bill in congress to cut off aid to Palestine. Yes, you read that right; it's not a bill to
cut off any aid to Israel.
Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will
not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS.
The heavy artillery included the detestable Karl Rove, former Governor and RNC Chair Haley Barber and the War Party's highly
paid chief PR flack, Ari Fleischer.
But it was Neocon central that hauled out the big guns. Bill Kristol was so desperate to thwart the slowly rising anti-interventionist
tide within the GOP that he even trotted out Sarah Palin to endorse Jones's opponent"
But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it
here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence
of the manifest destiny.
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike
of views for an older story, from November 29,
which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike
of views for an older story, from November 29,
which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike
of views for an older story, from November 29,
which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.
Ooo, this explains a mystery to me. I noticed on my own blog today there was an unusual spike
of views for an older story, from November 29,
which happened to be about this particular guy, Alparslan Çelik.
People must have googled his name, and maybe my story came up in the search results.
Exports of goods and services of Ukrainian production in 2015 will fall by about a third. And
this is not surprising: as a result of "reforms" in the country almost died the industry lost its
main Russian market, where Ukraine has supplied products with high added value. The cumulative figure
of industrial production YTD is approximately -15%. The main export product of Ukraine for the first
time since the pre-industrial era were products of agriculture. In the first place - corn.
Exports of goods and services of Ukrainian production in 2015 will fall by about a third. And
this is not surprising: as a result of "reforms" in the country almost died the industry lost its
main Russian market, where Ukraine has supplied products with high added value. The cumulative figure
of industrial production YTD is approximately -15%. The main export product of Ukraine for the first
time since the pre-industrial era were products of agriculture. In the first place - corn.
Exports of goods and services of Ukrainian production in 2015 will fall by about a third. And
this is not surprising: as a result of "reforms" in the country almost died the industry lost its
main Russian market, where Ukraine has supplied products with high added value. The cumulative figure
of industrial production YTD is approximately -15%. The main export product of Ukraine for the first
time since the pre-industrial era were products of agriculture. In the first place - corn.
Walker, as usual, is just doing his paid job ;-). Bots have no Christmas vacations by definition:
MTavernier,Metronome151,
psygone,
Alderbaran,
MentalToo,
Hektor Uranga, and one
interesting new one Chukuriuk
are all on duty. A deep observation by one of the commenters: "Interesting how all the trolling
comments, such as yours, seem to be against Putin..."
What some people doe not understand is that Putin represents a countervailing force to the
US imperial expansionism (and neoliberal expansionism in general). As there is an inherent value in
existence of countervailing force (neocons thing otherwise ;-) Putin deserve some level of support even
if one does not agree with everything he is doing. In a way Putin is more valuable to the USA then to
Russia as he prevents the USA elite from doing extremely stupid thing which were done during Yeltsin
rule which led to overstretching of the US empire and contains seeds its subsequent decline.
Notable quotes:
"... For all his sins you have to admire Putin. He is a man of conviction that actually believes in something that is worth saving, and will stop at nothing to achieve it. ..."
"... Battling against hostility from the West Putin has reformed the nations economy, and continues to work on behalf of his peoples interests. Its hard to imagine how Russia could ever replace Putin, or indeed what the new Russia would even look like without Putin at the helm. But for now the people are clearly grateful to have a strong decisive leader, as indeed are many other leaders across the globe who find Putin's honesty and conviction a breath of fresh air in a world of deception and double dealing. I guess with Putin you get what it says on the tin. ..."
"... Russian military requested by Assad to assist him in protecting his government. All others including America, British, French, Australian,Canadian, etc are there in contravention of International law ..."
"... Murdoch and Thatcher as a model of the free press? ..."
"... The Guardian and its puppet-masters hate the Russian people don't they? But they can't bring themselves to say that, so it's Putin they attempt to ridicule. ..."
"... Give me one Putin over a hundred Cameron's any day of the week. I've listened to a couple of those speeches, they are excellent, I don't bother listening to Mr Cameron. ..."
"... I know a few 'Russians' who have lived in the 'west' for 15/20 years. They had no illusions about their soviet upbringing, but knew the qualities of life - health care, education, housing - that it brought. They are generally agreed that the wonderland that was supposed to exist beyond their borders was an illusion. But they're hard working people, and they do OK. ..."
"... Russia has been able, in just 20 years, without wars and other troubles, to go from a semi-colony up to a world stage recognized leader. All Putin's risk-taking decisions have been successes or are still playing out and have good potential for ending in success. ..."
"... All this, quietly and imperceptibly, without tanks or strategic aviation, has been achieved by the Russian diplomacy, directed in a difficult confrontation with the block of the most powerful militarily and economically countries, while starting from a much lower position. ..."
"... Crimea would never have happened without the illegal coup backed by the west. We could choose to believe the western media's opinion on the state of Russia, or we could listen to the people who live there. ..."
"... What's that Shaun?.. Someone's publishing a book of Putin quotes?.. I've got a similar book by that other respected world leader and statesman.. You know.. Short, fat, speech impediment, drunk most of the time ... what's his name?..oh yeah, Churchill. ..."
"... This is what many in the west said too. Putin is just one of the few people with serious power to publically state the same. Western officials including Tony Blair admit that IS arose out of the chaos in Iraq. Its not even up for debate. The abomination that is IS is the chaos he warned us of. ..."
"... However, in the USA, Presidents tend to have Library Centers to archive their words of wisdom. Bush Junior's is located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in University Park, Texas, opened on April 25, 2013. ..."
"... Interesting how all the trolling comments, such as yours, seem to be against Putin... ..."
"... The MSM has brainwashed the western world and they don't know anything else but what they are fed. ..."
"... If you understand that the leader's image is so important for the well-being of the population you wouldn't be criticizing him. After the drunken years of Yeltsin the Russians needed a different role model. There is a reason for Obama (a heavy smoker) not to do it ( at least not in front of the cameras) ..."
"... They might have added his habit of speaking the truth. Best chance of finding out what's actually going on in Syria + the Middle East generally is to listen to Putin. ..."
Words That Change the World is a 400-page compilation of Vladimir Putin's most notable speeches,
and has been sent out to all Russian MPs and other political figures as a gift from the presidential
administration ahead of the country's new year holiday.
Anton Volodin of the pro-Kremlin youth group
Network, which published the book, told the Guardian: "A year ago we noticed when reading one
of his early speeches that it was exactly right in its predictions, so we decided to check all of
his other speeches. And it turns out basically everything he said has either already come true or
is in the process of coming true at this very moment."
There are 19 articles and speeches collected in the book, starting from 2003 and ending with Putin's
speech to the UN general assembly earlier this year. Volodin said: "If you read through them
all, you can see a clear pattern in his rhetoric and thoughts. A lot of people say he's unpredictable
or untruthful, but actually everything he says is transparent, clear and fully formed."
Alderbaran -> Popeyes 28 Dec 2015 16:21
China's GDP is roughly five times that of Russia and China is already leasing land in Russia's
east. I'm also assuming it is getting a pretty good deal on oil at the moment too - Don't expect
an equal partnership
Russia needs the West, just as the West needs Russia. Do you agree?
Laurence Johnson 28 Dec 2015 16:19
For all his sins you have to admire Putin. He is a man of conviction that actually believes
in something that is worth saving, and will stop at nothing to achieve it.
Battling against hostility from the West Putin has reformed the nations economy, and continues
to work on behalf of his peoples interests. Its hard to imagine how Russia could ever replace
Putin, or indeed what the new Russia would even look like without Putin at the helm. But for now
the people are clearly grateful to have a strong decisive leader, as indeed are many other leaders
across the globe who find Putin's honesty and conviction a breath of fresh air in a world of deception
and double dealing. I guess with Putin you get what it says on the tin.
KoreyD -> dyst1111 28 Dec 2015 16:19
Russian military requested by Assad to assist him in protecting his government. All others
including America, British, French, Australian,Canadian, etc are there in contravention of International
law
Popeyes 28 Dec 2015 16:18
"If those who had been present at the UN general assembly had listened to Putin's words, the
world would be a very different place. Hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive and
Europe would not be full of refugees from the middle east."
Of course he was right but of course he wasn't the only one saying these things at the time. Such
a shame our witless leaders didn't listen and perhaps we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.
Popeyes 28 Dec 2015 15:54
Russia is slowly moving out of the dollar system and Western sanctions will eventually have
little impact on the Russian economy. Russia and China can easily survive and prosper without
the dollar. Unfortunately Europe will lose out massively due to Russia's response to the sanctions
and will continue banning imports from the EU, agricultural produce, as well as manufactured goods,
leaving hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. Just think what Putin has done even before he started
bombing ISIS. He protects his country, his management of Russia's economy despite international
sanctions are feats that are to be admired. Is it any wonder he is hated and feared by the West.
Fallowfield -> MTavernier 28 Dec 2015 16:16
I'm trying to work this out. Come on, you're not really saying that we have a free press in
the west are you?
I believe it happened once, Watergate and all that. Murdoch and Thatcher as a model of
the free press?
No, you're taking the piss. I'll stop there.
Fallowfield -> Alderbaran 28 Dec 2015 16:10
The people I know were 'the younger generation'. Their illusions about the west were quickly
shattered. Different mafias, you see.
Putin's message? How very unlike our own dear Queen's Speech.
Alderbaran -> SHappens 28 Dec 2015 16:03
A very fair point but you have to admit that a forum saturated with meaningless posts is frustrating
for those who actually want to discuss the article. I feel compelled to challenge a number of
these posters.
Personally I feel that Russia started on a very different track following Putin's return as
president in 2012 and following the Bolotnaya square demonstrations - He was shaken by this!
I see a cult of personality blinding many Russians, including many of the commentators on this
forum and it seems that in Russia what is important is not the facts but nationalism and a shared
identity. This helps to protect Putin from criticism ans shores up his position but it is worrying
when a government relies so much on one man and that there is nothing to indicate that Putin intends
to change this. The publication of a book of speeches by "Network" is yet another indication of
the reliance on this personality cult and to be very frank, it disturbs and saddens me.
Does any of this concern you too, or do you think that this is the best that Russia should
hope for at the moment?
Equidom 28 Dec 2015 16:02
The Guardian and its puppet-masters hate the Russian people don't they? But they can't
bring themselves to say that, so it's Putin they attempt to ridicule.
Rantalot 28 Dec 2015 15:42
Give me one Putin over a hundred Cameron's any day of the week. I've listened to a couple
of those speeches, they are excellent, I don't bother listening to Mr Cameron.
Fallowfield 28 Dec 2015 15:29
I know a few 'Russians' who have lived in the 'west' for 15/20 years. They had no illusions
about their soviet upbringing, but knew the qualities of life - health care, education, housing
- that it brought. They are generally agreed that the wonderland that was supposed to exist beyond
their borders was an illusion. But they're hard working people, and they do OK.
They support Putin. Why? KGB indoctrination? Far from it, these are the people who wanted to
get away. And they - just like you - love their homeland. And who protects their homeland? The
President of the USA? The PM of the UK? You must be joking.
Putin. Nobody else.
SHappens -> apacheman 28 Dec 2015 15:26
Russia has been able, in just 20 years, without wars and other troubles, to go from a semi-colony
up to a world stage recognized leader. All Putin's risk-taking decisions have been successes or
are still playing out and have good potential for ending in success.
All this, quietly and imperceptibly, without tanks or strategic aviation, has been achieved
by the Russian diplomacy, directed in a difficult confrontation with the block of the most powerful
militarily and economically countries, while starting from a much lower position.
This is part of Putin, and Lavrov's great achievements. Might be worth for you to read this
book after all, you might be learning something.
Alderbaran -> WalterCronkiteBot 28 Dec 2015 15:20
Who said you were Russian and why did you suggest that you might be if Putin has a lot of support
outside the country?
What surprised me is your apparently unsupportable notion that Putin is trying to make Russia
look amicable. Your post also brought up topics far from the bounds of this article, yet you state
that you don't know what to believe in.
If you are sincere in wanting to understand Russia better, David Remnick's excellent book on
Russia is a great start - see Lenin's Tomb. Chrystia freeland's 'Sale of the Century' brilliantly
describes the Yeltsin years and the power struggles taking place following the fall of the wall.
I'd also recommend listing to Mark Galeotti on the sublect of Russia, and he is a regular conrtibutor
to both RT and RFERL.
Peter Evans -> Alderbaran 28 Dec 2015 15:10
Crimea would never have happened without the illegal coup backed by the west. We could
choose to believe the western media's opinion on the state of Russia, or we could listen to the
people who live there.
Fallowfield -> CoinBiter 28 Dec 2015 15:09
After the USA, UK and other allied countries had invaded Russia in 1919 the eventual Soviet
Republic did what it could to protect itself I suppose. And Russia still does. Ask where the USA
bases are, and compare their distribution to those of Russia.
The USA didn't fancy one in Cuba, did they? A perfectly lawful international agreement. They
threatened nuclear destruction as an ultimatum.
WalterCronkiteBot -> Alderbaran 28 Dec 2015 15:04
Yes I'm an evil Russian. I can't possibly be from the west.
To answer your question though, I don't know what to believe hence me stating "What I don't
get with Putin is...". I don't understand the actual situation because I don't have inside knowledge.
I'm saying on the face of it he appears to speak for those in the west against war in the ME,
which is good, but we shouldnt trust him entirely.
If that makes me a Kremlin shill so be it.
Not4TheFaintOfHeart 28 Dec 2015 14:59
Can somebody please tell Shaun to come in from the cold... It's over Shaun: Syria saved from
a Libya/Iraq fate x2, ISIS degraded very nicely, thank you, Crimea voted to be part of the RF,
Mistrals now sold to Egept, BRICS bank created, colour revolution in Georgia thwarted...
What's that Shaun?.. Someone's publishing a book of Putin quotes?.. I've got a similar
book by that other respected world leader and statesman.. You know.. Short, fat, speech impediment,
drunk most of the time ... what's his name?..oh yeah, Churchill.
Fallowfield -> Metronome151 28 Dec 2015 14:49
Well we certainly jailed members of the WSPU for wanting to vote. 14 Northern Irish civil rights
protest marchers, legal and unarmed, were shot dead on the street by British troops in 1972, as
I remember. Striking workers have been jailed, and many more have had cases against them dropped
in court for 'lack of evidence', ie when the police evidence presented was so obviously falsified.
I wonder where the KGB got their ideas from?
apacheman -> Fallowfield 28 Dec 2015 14:48
And the Soviet people could thank the West for the Lend-Lease supplies that allowed them to
withstand the Nazi juggernaut, without which they would have collapsed.
WalterCronkiteBot 28 Dec 2015 14:46
"Putin was correct to predict chaos in international affairs if the UN and other institutions
of international law are ignored."
This is what many in the west said too. Putin is just one of the few people with serious
power to publically state the same. Western officials including Tony Blair admit that IS arose
out of the chaos in Iraq. Its not even up for debate. The abomination that is IS is the chaos
he warned us of.
In 2013 Putin accused Kerry of lying when he told a senate hearing that AQ are not in Syria
and as such pose no threat in that region. He warned us but noone listened. Now we have Syria
overran by AQ affiliated groups toting US made weaponry.
What I don't get with Putin is the apparent naivety. As his speeches show he is well aware
of the machinations of the western powers, yet puts faith in them time and time again. Hes either
very naive or just wants to ensure that Russia look as amicable as possible in the history books.
Peter Evans 28 Dec 2015 14:34
The US loved Yeltsin, a weak leader, they do not like a strong Russian leader who does the
best for his country.
mgeary -> rcil2003 28 Dec 2015 14:33
Oh, the results in the USA are the same as in Russia, the only difference being that they have
a ruling elite there, who promote different faces every election for the Presidency.
This and the fact that, in contrast to Russia, they are being subtle about it...
Chuckman 28 Dec 2015 14:25
The most able leader of our generation. Simply a remarkable man.
This got me pondering on what an equivalent publication for George W Bush would contain. Chapter
One - reading "My Pet Goat".
However, in the USA, Presidents tend to have Library Centers to archive their words of
wisdom. Bush Junior's is located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in University
Park, Texas, opened on April 25, 2013. The janitor wasn't best pleased; he had to find a
new broom cupboard...
rcil2003 -> euphoniumbrioche 28 Dec 2015 14:16
western leaders are nothing but interchangeable game show hosts. Behind them is the real power,
wielded in secret by utterly evil characters like Dick Cheney, who would have been right at home
in the Third Reich.
presstheredbutton -> nonanon1 28 Dec 2015 14:15
Interesting how all the trolling comments, such as yours, seem to be against Putin...
Parangaricurimicuaro -> Metronome151 28 Dec 2015 14:20
Now you are giving me the reason. The MSM has brainwashed the western world and they don't
know anything else but what they are fed.
Parangaricurimicuaro -> hermionegingold 28 Dec 2015 14:01
If you understand that the leader's image is so important for the well-being of the population
you wouldn't be criticizing him. After the drunken years of Yeltsin the Russians needed a different
role model. There is a reason for Obama (a heavy smoker) not to do it ( at least not in front
of the cameras)
greatapedescendant -> Strummered 28 Dec 2015 13:46
They might have added his habit of speaking the truth. Best chance of finding out what's actually
going on in Syria + the Middle East generally is to listen to Putin.
"... At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States. ..."
Plunging crude oil prices are diverting hundreds of billions of dollars away from the treasure
chests of oil-exporting nations, putting some of the United States' adversaries under greater stress.
After two years of falling prices, the effects have reverberated across the globe, fueling economic
discontent in Venezuela, changing Russia's economic and political calculations, and dampening Iranian
leaders' hopes of a financial windfall when sanctions linked to its nuclear program will be lifted
next year.
At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some
of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin,
undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for
Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid
economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States.
"Cheap oil hurts revenues for some of our foes and helps some of our friends. The Europeans, South
Koreans and Japanese - they're all winners," said Robert McNally, director for energy in President
George W. Bush's National Security Council and now head of the Rapidan Group, a consulting firm.
"It's not good for Russia, that's for sure, and it's not good for Iran."
... ... ...
In Iran, cheap oil is forcing the government to ratchet down expectations.
The much-anticipated lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program
is expected to result in an additional half-million barrels a day of oil exports by the middle of
2016.
But at current prices, Iran's income from those sales will still fall short of revenue earned
from constrained oil exports a year ago.
Moreover, low prices are making it difficult for Iran to persuade international oil companies
to develop Iran's long-neglected oil and gas fields, which have been off limits since sanctions were
broadened in 2012.
"Should Iran come out of sanctions, they will face a very different market than the one they had
left in 2012," Amos Hochstein, the State Department's special envoy and coordinator for international
energy affairs, said in an interview. "They were forced to recede in a world of over $100 oil, and
sanctions will be lifted at $36 oil. They will have to work harder to convince companies to come
in and take the risk for supporting their energy infrastructure and their energy production."
Meanwhile, in Russia, low oil prices have compounded damage done by U.S. and European sanctions
that were designed to target Russia's energy and financial sectors. And when Iran increases output,
its grade of crude oil will most likely go to Europe, where it will compete directly with Russia's
Urals oil, McNally said.
Steven Mufson covers the White House. Since joining The Post, he has covered economics, China,
foreign policy and energy.
There is a
growing chorus in Europe against Germany's support to expand a
major natural gas pipeline from Russia over fears that it will
leave Europe more dependent on their eastern neighbor.
The
Nord Stream 2 would build on the existing Nord Stream pipeline, a
conduit that delivers Russian natural gas to Germany via the Baltic
Sea. Crucially, the project cuts out Ukraine, a key strategic
objective for Russia since the original project's inception.
The latest $11 billion expansion would double the pipeline's
current capacity
of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. From Russia's
perspective, the project will increase market share and gas sales;
from Germany's point of view, the project increases sources of
supply. Nord Stream 2 was originally conceived of years ago, but in
June 2015 Gazprom
signed a
memorandum with Royal Dutch Shell and OMV to move forward.
Nick Cunningham is a Vermont-based writer on energy and environmental issues. You can
follow him on twitter at @nickcunningham1
"... At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some of
the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, undermining
the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for Iranian oil revenue.
At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid economic recoveries
in Europe, Japan and the United States. ..."
Plunging crude oil prices are diverting hundreds of billions of dollars away from the treasure
chests of oil-exporting nations, putting some of the United States' adversaries under greater stress.
After two years of falling prices, the effects have reverberated across the globe, fueling economic
discontent in Venezuela, changing Russia's economic and political calculations, and dampening Iranian
leaders' hopes of a financial windfall when sanctions linked to its nuclear program will be lifted
next year.
At a time of tension for U.S. international relations, cheap oil has dovetailed with some
of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals: pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin,
undermining the popularity of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and tempering the prospects for
Iranian oil revenue. At the same time, it is pouring cash into the hands of consumers, boosting tepid
economic recoveries in Europe, Japan and the United States.
"Cheap oil hurts revenues for some of our foes and helps some of our friends. The Europeans, South
Koreans and Japanese - they're all winners," said Robert McNally, director for energy in President
George W. Bush's National Security Council and now head of the Rapidan Group, a consulting firm.
"It's not good for Russia, that's for sure, and it's not good for Iran."
... ... ...
In Iran, cheap oil is forcing the government to ratchet down expectations.
The much-anticipated lifting of sanctions as a result of the deal to limit Iran's nuclear program
is expected to result in an additional half-million barrels a day of oil exports by the middle of
2016.
But at current prices, Iran's income from those sales will still fall short of revenue earned
from constrained oil exports a year ago.
Moreover, low prices are making it difficult for Iran to persuade international oil companies
to develop Iran's long-neglected oil and gas fields, which have been off limits since sanctions were
broadened in 2012.
"Should Iran come out of sanctions, they will face a very different market than the one they had
left in 2012," Amos Hochstein, the State Department's special envoy and coordinator for international
energy affairs, said in an interview. "They were forced to recede in a world of over $100 oil, and
sanctions will be lifted at $36 oil. They will have to work harder to convince companies to come
in and take the risk for supporting their energy infrastructure and their energy production."
Meanwhile, in Russia, low oil prices have compounded damage done by U.S. and European sanctions
that were designed to target Russia's energy and financial sectors. And when Iran increases output,
its grade of crude oil will most likely go to Europe, where it will compete directly with Russia's
Urals oil, McNally said.
Steven Mufson covers the White House. Since joining The Post, he has covered economics, China,
foreign policy and energy.
"... apparently, two USAF F-15C Eagle air superiority fighters (which had been deployed to Incirlik
Air Force Base, Turkey, in November 2015) were in the air as back-up to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish
Air Force: THK) F-16s, one of which shot down the Su-24. ..."
"... At best, Russia may now move to cover its tactical operations in northern Syria more effectively
by offering its own deterrence of top cover by advanced fighters while the ground attack aircraft, such
as the Su-24s, do their job. It is also clear that any further Turkish incursions into Syrian airspace
were now at-risk, but the Turks already knew that. ..."
It was, in this latest incident, Turkey, working with the U.S. Government of President Barack
Obama, which planned and executed the November 24, 2015, interception of the Russian Air Force Su-24.
The event was not a spontaneous occurrence, and, apparently, two USAF F-15C Eagle air superiority
fighters (which had been deployed to Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey, in November 2015) were in the
air as back-up to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish Air Force: THK) F-16s, one of which shot down
the Su-24. USAF sources subsequently said that the U.S. was taken by surprise when the THK shot
down the Sukhoi, but that hardly squares with the historical Turkish practice of coordinating such
actions with Washington. Moreover, the Turkish narrative that it "warned" the Russian aircraft several
times over a period of five minutes before the THK F-16 shot it down also does not square with reality.
And in this particular ground attack operation, the two Su-24s - including the one which was destroyed
- were engaged on missions which did not require them to enter Turkish airspace, even though an acci-dental
entry into it was conceivable. Their targets were in the area of northern Syria: pro-Ankara Turkmen
militia engaged in supporting the massive cross-border operations of ISIS (asad- Dawlah al-Islamiyah
fi al-'Iraq wash-Sham, or Islamic State) moving oil, fighters, and weapons across the Syria-Turkish
border.
Dave Majumdar, Defense Editor at the U.S. blogsite, The National Interest, on December 7, 2015,
noted: "The United States and Turkey are working on an agreement that would allow the US Air Force
F-15Cs to defend Turkish airspace. However, the precise rules of engagement and procedures have yet
to be ironed out." It is possible that Turkey wanted to illustrate to the US that its airspace was,
in fact, threatened. But what has been clear is that no credible Russian military threat to Turkey
existed.
At best, Russia may now move to cover its tactical operations in northern Syria more effectively
by offering its own deterrence of top cover by advanced fighters while the ground attack aircraft,
such as the Su-24s, do their job. It is also clear that any further Turkish incursions into Syrian
airspace were now at-risk, but the Turks already knew that.
Recently-retired U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn publicly said
in Moscow on December 10, 2015, that there was no possibility that the Turkish shootdown was undertaken
without the express permission and direction of "the highest authority" in Turkey.
Indeed, Turkey has traditionally played the role of aggressor in terms of airspace violation.
Not only did the THK lose an RF-4E Phantom II reconnaissance aircraft well into Syrian airspace on
June 22, 2012, as a result of surface-to-air missile fire, it continues to consistently invade the
airspace of fellow NATO member and neighbor Greece in a manner far more hostile than the penetration
of Turkish airspace it alleged Russia undertook (for 17 seconds). THK F-16s entered Greek airspace
some 2,200 times in 2014 alone. Moreover, Turkey consistently has violated Cypriot air-, sea, and
land-space since its 1974 invasion and occupation of the northern 37 percent of Cyprus.1
So Turkey is hardly the victim. [Indeed, by deliberately starting the "civil war" to remove Pres.
Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria, Turkey only incurred a "refugee problem" as a result of its
own actions, and has subsequently sought to push those refugees onward into Europe as quickly as
possible, seeking political rewards from Europe as the only power capable of stopping the refugee
flows.]
In any event, Pres. Erdogan, three years ago said that "a short- term border violation can never
be a pre-text for an attack". But that, of course, was when a THK aircraft was shot down by Syria
when the THK F-4E deliberately and for some time penetrated Syrian airspace on a mission against
Syria.
... .... ....
Turkey, too, will not remain inactive. It will resume its support for anti-Russian terrorism,
including support for jihadist movements in the Caucasus. These have included such groups as
Kvadrat (Quadrant), a Bos-nia-based Wahhabist unit, which had "laundered" its operations through
Turkish-occupied Northern Cy-prus, thence into Turkey and on into the Russian Caucasus.4 But the
reactivation of Turkish-backed terror-ism in the Russian Caucasus will be far wider than just
Kvadrat: Turkey works extensively, even now, with Chechen and other Caucasus groups inside ISIS
and in the jihadi operations in Syria.
Significantly, by early December 2015, President Erdogan assumed that the crisis had passed
sufficiently for Turkey to expand its activities in the area. There was no indication that Turkey
and ISIS had diminished their extensive and integrated operations in terms of oil transactions,
the supply of weapons to ISIS via Turkey, and the use of Turkey as a medical support arena for
ISIS wounded. But Turkey went further and deployed Turkish Army troops into northern Iraq near
the ISIS-held city of Mosul in early December 2015. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi led
calls for Turkish troops to be withdrawn immediately; they had not been withdrawn by the time
this report went to press.
... ... ...
The path, however, is open for a great Russian cooperation with the Kurdish forces, as well as
with other regional allies which are concerned about Turkey's strategic adventurism. The Kurds,
particularly those led by the majority Kurdish force (under the PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan,
the Kurdish Workers' Par-ty), are now well underway in responding to Ankara. The civil war is
underway inside Turkey, and it re-mains literally out-of-bounds to the international media. What
is significant is that the Kurds have thus far not agreed to cooperate with Russia, but are
awaiting a nod from their principal ally, Israel, before trust-ing Russia.
Thus Israel's position becomes critical in this debate.
Much of the Israeli leadership still hopes that a rapprochement might be achievable with Turkey,
but that hope is fading. On the other hand, Israeli planners have to consider whether a broken
Turkey - perhaps replaced by a patchwork of states, and with no non-Arab player other than Iran
to monitor the region - is worse than a troublesome Turkey. There is also the question of whether
unqualified Israeli support for the Kurdish "big push" against Turkey would then jeopardize
Israeli strategic relations with Saudi Arabia, which is apparently undecided on whether, or how
much, it favors a continuation of the Turkish state.
Without Turkey, according to the Saudi rationale, who would be the counterweight to Iran?
Israel is also not immune to this argument, although for Israel the prospect exists for an
eventual reunion with Tehran, after the clerical leadership goes, or modifies.
So Russia is left with three potential regional allies - apart from Syria, Iraq, and Iran
- against Ankara: Greece, Egypt, and Jordan. And Cyprus and Armenia to the limited extent that
they can assist.
... ... ...
Articles 10 to 18 are the articles which allow for various states, including Russia, to
transit military ships through the straits. In short, if Turkey invoked either Article 20 or
Article 21, Russia would be legally blocked from moving any naval vessel through the Straits.
Moscow has clearly long gamed out this scenario, which accounts for President Putin's
commitment to a measured response to Ankara. Thus it must be a proxy response, for the most part,
as well as an economic one. But while it demonstrates the delicacy needed by Moscow, it also
demonstrates the reality that Russia cannot continue to be strategically constrained by an
increasingly hostile and ambitious Turkey.
So where Turkey is vulnerable is in its economy.
The effects of Russian economic embargoes against Turkey are far more significant than
would seem to be the case because the Turkish economy is more vulnerable than it has been
portrayed. It is far more leveraged with borrowings than at any time in the recent past. It
has a discreet outflow of domestic capital and is heavily reliant on discreet financial
injections, probably coming from Qatar, and possible Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia's ability to
prop up Turkey is becoming limited.
...while Turkey may not be regarded as an entirely stable partner for the PRC in the region,
Beijing would be wary of acting precipitously against it.
...Iran - like Russia - is constrained to act cautiously and indirectly against Turkey.
Moreover, Iran cannot risk that its own Kurdish population could join with Syrian, Iraqi, and
Turkish Kurds to form a new Kurdish state.
...And in the short-term, this all has hardened Ankara's position on remaining in control of
the northern 37 percent of Cyprus, which it has occupied militarily since 1974.
...There is no doubt that Pres. Erdogan believes that continued brinkmanship will be possible,
although he is not perhaps aware that he is losing the information war, or the psychological war.
Amvet on December 15 2015 said:
Thank you Mr. Copley for a well researched, honest, and very interesting article. Any chance
of getting this published in any US mainstream
newspaper or magazine ?? .
Jim on December 15 2015 said:
...Nice information actually, most mainstream media doesn't even come close. Thanks. definitely
a deliberate and pre-approved escalation of the conflict, pointing fingers back to Washington,
D.C.
Chris on December 15 2015 said:
A great article that brings together much of what has been reported and provides a coherent
framework for understanding it. This piece should be in a general interest publication such as
the NY Times so that more Americans could understand what is really going on in the Middle East.
"... I'm still trying to think through the implications but they are certainly disquieting. Without trying to hard I'd summarize that "the masks are coming off." ..."
"... The question then is, what happens after "the masks come off?" ..."
"... Short-sighted western pundits will still be penning deadline copy headlined "How Putin lost Ukraine" while those with real vision will be putting the finishing touches on "How America Lost the Rest of the World" ..."
Hard to overstate the importance of this article. Thanks for spotting it.
There's a lot here
but this passage is kind of free-standing in its value by simply condensing how the IMF has contorted
itself:
"The IMF thus is breaking four rules:
Not lending to a country that has no visible means to
pay back the loan breaks the "No More Argentinas" rule adopted after the IMF's disastrous 2001
loan.
Not lending to countries that refuse in good faith to negotiate with their official creditors
goes against the IMF's role as the major tool of the global creditors' cartel.
And the IMF is
now lending to a borrower at war, indeed one that is destroying its export capacity and hence
its balance-of-payments ability to pay back the loan.
Finally, the IMF is lending to a country
that has little likelihood of refuse carrying out the IMF's notorious austerity "conditionalities"
on its population – without putting down democratic opposition in a totalitarian manner. Instead
of being treated as an outcast from the international financial system, Ukraine is being welcomed
and financed."
I'm still trying to think through the implications but they are certainly disquieting. Without
trying to hard I'd summarize that "the masks are coming off."
The question then is, what happens after "the masks come off?"
… war.
(Sometimes it's best just to blurt out what's worrying you.)
Short-sighted western pundits will still be penning deadline copy headlined "How Putin lost
Ukraine" while those with real vision will be putting the finishing touches on "How America Lost
the Rest of the World".
"... It's now clear that if Obama had ordered a major bombing campaign against Assad's military in early September 2013, he might have opened the gates of Damascus to a hellish victory by al-Qaeda-affiliated extremists or the even more brutal Islamic State, since these terrorist groups have emerged as the only effective fighters against Assad. ..."
"... By late September 2013, the disappointed neocons were acting out their anger by taking aim at Putin. They recognized that a particular vulnerability for the Russian president was Ukraine and the possibility that it could be pulled out of Russia's sphere of influence and into the West's orbit. ..."
"... But Gershman added that Ukraine was really only an interim step to an even bigger prize, the removal of the strong-willed and independent-minded Putin, who, Gershman added, "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad [i.e. Ukraine] but within Russia itself." In other words, the new neocon hope was for "regime change" in Kiev and Moscow. [See Consortiumnews.com's " Neocons' Ukraine/Syria/Iran Gambit. "] ..."
"... Putin also had sidetracked that possible war with Iran by helping to forge an interim agreement constraining but not eliminating Iran's nuclear program. So, he became the latest target of neocon demonization, a process in which the New York Times and the Washington Post eagerly took the lead. ..."
"... As the political violence in Kiev escalated – with the uprising's muscle supplied by neo-Nazi militias from western Ukraine – neocons within the Obama administration discussed how to "midwife" a coup against Yanukovych. Central to this planning was Victoria Nuland, who had been promoted to assistant secretary of state for European affairs and was urging on the protesters, even passing out cookies to protesters at Kiev's Maidan square. ..."
"... When the coup went down on Feb. 22 – spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias who seized government buildings and forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives – the U.S. State Department quickly deemed the new regime "legitimate" and the mainstream U.S. media dutifully stepped up the demonization of Yanukovych and Putin. ..."
"... Although Putin's position had been in support of Ukraine's status quo – i.e., retaining the elected president and the country's constitutional process – the crisis was pitched to the American people as a case of "Russian aggression" with dire comparisons made between Putin and Hitler, especially after ethnic Russians in the east and south resisted the coup regime in Kiev and Crimea seceded to rejoin Russia. ..."
"... Pressured by the Obama administration, the EU agreed to sanction Russia for its "aggression," touching off a tit-for-tat trade war with Moscow which reduced Europe's sale of farming and manufacturing goods to Russia and threatened to disrupt Russia's natural gas supplies to Europe. ..."
"... While the most serious consequences were to Ukraine's economy which went into freefall because of the civil war, some of Europe's most endangered economies in the south also were hit hard by the lost trade with Russia. Europe began to stagger toward the third dip in a triple-dip recession with European markets experiencing major stock sell-offs. ..."
If you're nervously watching the stock market gyrations and worrying about your declining portfolio
or pension fund, part of the blame should go to America's neocons who continue to be masters of chaos,
endangering the world's economy by instigating geopolitical confrontations in the Middle East and
Eastern Europe.
Of course, there are other factors pushing Europe's economy to the brink of a triple-dip
recession and threatening to stop America's fragile recovery, too. But the neocons' "regime change"
strategies, which have unleashed violence and confrontations across Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran and
most recently Ukraine, have added to the economic uncertainty.
This neocon destabilization of the world economy began with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003
under President George W. Bush who squandered some $1 trillion on the bloody folly. But the neocons'
strategies have continued through their still-pervasive influence in Official Washington during President
Barack Obama's administration.
The neocons and their "liberal interventionist" junior partners have kept the "regime change"
pot boiling with the Western-orchestrated overthrow and killing of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in 2011,
the proxy civil war in Syria to oust Bashar al-Assad, the costly economic embargoes against Iran,
and the U.S.-backed coup that ousted Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February.
All these targeted governments were first ostracized by the neocons and the major U.S. news organizations,
such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, which have become what amounts to neocon mouthpieces.
Whenever the neocons decide that it's time for another "regime change," the mainstream U.S. media
enlists in the propaganda wars.
The consequence of this cascading disorder has been damaging and cumulative. The costs of the
Iraq War strapped the U.S. Treasury and left less government maneuvering room when Wall Street crashed
in 2008. If Bush still had the surplus that he inherited from President Bill Clinton – rather than
a yawning deficit – there might have been enough public money to stimulate a much-faster recovery.
President Obama also wouldn't have been left to cope with the living hell that the U.S. occupation
brought to the people of Iraq, violent chaos that gave birth to what was then called "Al-Qaeda in
Iraq" and has since rebranded itself "the Islamic State."
But Obama didn't do himself (or the world) any favors when he put much of his foreign policy in
the hands of Democratic neocon-lites, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Bush holdovers,
including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus. At State, Clinton promoted the
likes of neocon Victoria Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan, and Obama brought in "liberal
interventionists" like Samantha Power, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
In recent years, the neocons and "liberal interventionists" have become almost indistinguishable,
so much so that Robert Kagan has opted to discard the discredited neocon label and call himself a
"liberal interventionist." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Obama's
True Foreign Policy 'Weakness.'"]
Manipulating Obama
Obama, in his nearly six years as president, also has shied away from imposing his more "realistic"
views about world affairs on the neocon/liberal-interventionist ideologues inside the U.S. pundit
class and his own administration. He has been outmaneuvered by clever insiders (as happened in 2009
on the Afghan "surge") or overwhelmed by some Official Washington "group think" (as was the case
in Libya, Syria, Iran and Ukraine).
Once all the "smart people" reach some collective decision that a foreign leader "must go," Obama
usually joins the chorus and has shown only rare moments of toughness in standing up to misguided
conventional wisdoms.
The one notable case was his decision in summer 2013 to resist pressure to destroy Syria's military
after a Sarin gas attack outside Damascus sparked a dubious rush to judgment blaming Assad's regime.
Since then, more evidence has pointed to a provocation by anti-Assad extremists who may have thought
that the incident would draw in the U.S. military on their side. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Was
Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack?"]
It's now clear that if Obama had ordered a major bombing campaign against Assad's military in
early September 2013, he might have opened the gates of Damascus to a hellish victory by al-Qaeda-affiliated
extremists or the even more brutal Islamic State, since these terrorist groups have emerged as the
only effective fighters against Assad.
But the neocons and the "liberal interventionists" seemed oblivious to that danger. They had their
hearts set on Syrian "regime change," so were furious when their dreams were dashed by Obama's supposed
"weakness," i.e. his failure to do what they wanted. They also blamed Russian President Vladimir
Putin who brokered a compromise with Assad in which he agreed to surrender all of Syria's chemical
weapons while still denying a role in the Sarin attack.
By late September 2013, the disappointed neocons were acting out their anger by taking aim at
Putin. They recognized that a particular vulnerability for the Russian president was Ukraine and
the possibility that it could be pulled out of Russia's sphere of influence and into the West's orbit.
So, Carl Gershman, the neocon president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, took
to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to sound the trumpet about Ukraine, which
he
called "the biggest prize."
But Gershman added that Ukraine was really only an interim step to an even bigger prize, the removal
of the strong-willed and independent-minded Putin, who, Gershman added, "may find himself on the
losing end not just in the near abroad [i.e. Ukraine] but within Russia itself." In other words,
the new neocon hope was for "regime change" in Kiev and Moscow. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Neocons'
Ukraine/Syria/Iran Gambit."]
Destabilizing the World
Beyond the recklessness of plotting to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia, the neocon strategy threatened
to shake Europe's fragile economic recovery from a painful recession, six years of jobless stress
that had strained the cohesion of the European Union and the euro zone.
Across the Continent, populist parties from the Right and Left have been challenging establishment
politicians over their inability to reverse the widespread unemployment and the growing poverty.
Important to Europe's economy was its relationship with Russia, a major market for agriculture and
manufactured goods and a key source of natural gas to keep Europe's industries humming and its houses
warm.
The last thing Europe needed was more chaos, but that's what the neocons do best and they were
determined to punish Putin for disrupting their plans for Syrian "regime change," an item long near
the top of their agenda along with their desire to "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," which Israel has cited
as an "existential threat."
Putin also had sidetracked that possible war with Iran by helping to forge an interim agreement
constraining but not eliminating Iran's nuclear program. So, he became the latest target of neocon
demonization, a process in which the New York Times and the Washington Post eagerly took the lead.
To get at Putin, however, the first step was Ukraine where Gershman's NED was funding scores of
programs for political activists and media operatives. These efforts fed into mass protests against
Ukrainian President Yanukovych for balking at an EU association agreement that included a harsh austerity
plan designed by the International Monetary Fund. Yanukovych opted instead for a more generous $15
billion loan deal from Putin.
As the political violence in Kiev escalated – with the uprising's muscle supplied by neo-Nazi
militias from western Ukraine – neocons within the Obama administration discussed how to "midwife"
a coup against Yanukovych. Central to this planning was Victoria Nuland, who had been promoted to
assistant secretary of state for European affairs and was urging on the protesters, even passing
out cookies to protesters at Kiev's Maidan square.
According to an
intercepted phone call with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Nuland didn't think EU
officials were being aggressive enough. "Fuck the EU," she said as she brainstormed how "to help
glue this thing." She literally handpicked who should be in the post-coup government – "Yats is the
guy," a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk who would indeed become prime minister.
When the coup went down on Feb. 22 – spearheaded by neo-Nazi militias who seized government buildings
and forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives – the U.S. State Department quickly
deemed the new regime "legitimate" and the mainstream U.S. media dutifully stepped up the demonization
of Yanukovych and Putin.
Although Putin's position had been in support of Ukraine's status quo – i.e., retaining the elected
president and the country's constitutional process – the crisis was pitched to the American people
as a case of "Russian aggression" with dire comparisons made between Putin and Hitler, especially
after ethnic Russians in the east and south resisted the coup regime in Kiev and Crimea seceded to
rejoin Russia.
Starting a Trade War
Pressured by the Obama administration, the EU agreed to sanction Russia for its "aggression,"
touching off a tit-for-tat trade war with Moscow which reduced Europe's sale of farming and manufacturing
goods to Russia and threatened to disrupt Russia's natural gas supplies to Europe.
While the most serious consequences were to Ukraine's economy which went into freefall because
of the civil war, some of Europe's most endangered economies in the south also were hit hard by the
lost trade with Russia. Europe began to stagger toward the third dip in a triple-dip recession with
European markets experiencing major stock sell-offs.
The dominoes soon toppled across the Atlantic as major U.S. stock indices dropped, creating anguish
among many Americans just when it seemed the hangover from Bush's 2008 market crash was finally wearing
off.
Obviously, there are other reasons for the recent stock market declines, including fears about
the Islamic State's victories in Syria and Iraq, continued chaos in Libya, and exclusion of Iran
from the global economic system – all partly the result of neocon ideology. There have been unrelated
troubles, too, such as the Ebola epidemic in western Africa and various weather disasters.
But the world's economy usually can withstand some natural and manmade challenges. The real problem
comes when a combination of catastrophes pushes the international financial system to a tipping point.
Then, even a single event can dump the world into economic chaos, like what happened when Lehman
Brothers collapsed in 2008.
It's not clear whether the world is at such a tipping point today, but the stock market volatility
suggests that we may be on the verge of another worldwide recession. Meanwhile, the neocon masters
of chaos seem determined to keep putting their ideological obsessions ahead of the risks to Americans
and people everywhere.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America's Stolen Narrative, either
in
print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush
Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer,
click here.
"... How could Ukraine's government deficit only be 4.1% when its currency has crashed, it has lost most of its sources of income and it has just defaulted on its debt? What the fuck are they talking about? ..."
"... First, there is no way on God's green earth that there is a negative difference of only 4.1% between Ukraine's annual revenues and its annual expenditures, especially since it has almost no revenues except from taxation. ..."
Start shovelin' in the money, IMF, because Ukraine has the magic formula – just refuse to pay
what you owe, call it a 'temporary suspension of payments' instead of 'a default', and reap the
reward for your display of responsibility.
I foresee the mileage Russia is going to get out of this will far exceed the value of the $3
Billion.
marknesop, December 19, 2015 at 8:47 pm
How could Ukraine's government deficit only be 4.1% when its currency has crashed, it has
lost most of its sources of income and it has just defaulted on its debt? What the fuck are they
talking about?
"The proposed budget would work to reduce the government's deficit from 4.1% to 3.7%, with
measures including an increase in revenue by widening the tax base."
First, there is no way on God's green earth that there is a negative difference of only
4.1% between Ukraine's annual revenues and its annual expenditures, especially since it has almost
no revenues except from taxation.
And now the IMF expects to realize more revenue from widening the tax base – yes, I can imagine
what a popular initiative that is. Now you know how Yushchenko felt, Yatsie, when the IMF denied
him a second big loan because he refused to eliminate the gas subsidies to residents.
Now the IMF has finally realized that triumph through a different leader, and it wants to see
even more tax revenue. You are about to be as popular as a turd in the punch bowl; have fun with
that.
kirill, December 20, 2015 at 12:58 pm
I would not trust any GDP numbers from the Kiev regime either. They lost 25% of the economy
in the Donbas alone not counting Crimea. This has knock on effects to the rest of Banderastan.
Yet they are yapping about some 12% contraction in 2015 after a 7% contraction in 2014. I see
no clear indication that they are counting the GDP only for regime controlled Banderastan.
As for the budget, according to regime officials, Banderastan lost 30% of its hard currency
revenues with the loss of the Donbass. I estimate the tax loss to Kiev to be about 30% as well.
The Donbass was the industrialized part of the country while western Banderastan is primarily
agrarian. So talk about 4% shortfalls in revenue is utter rubbish. In most countries the money
making parts of the economy subsidize the rest and sure as hell it was not western Banderastan
that was subsidizing the Donbass. That was just virulent blood libel such as the claim that Russians
settled eastern Ukraine only after the Holodomor.
marknesop, December 20, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Europe deserves Ukraine. Let them have it, the quicker the better. It's fine when Yats is selling
that stinking mess to his simple-minded constituents, but European policymakers will see through
it right away. Unfortunately, Brussels knows better than to bring Ukraine any closer into the
fold, because if they get a visa-free regime, the place will empty out in a week as Ukrainians
flee throughout Europe (which is already, everyone must know, full of refugees) looking for jobs.
Yves here. If you followed the TransPacific Partnership negotiations closely, you may recall that
Japan looked like it was going along only to placate Washington, and then it signed up only because
the US allowed it to drop its "defense only" posture (remember that Japan is a military protectorate
of the US) and gave major concession on agriculture (Japan's farmers are a famously powerful voting
block). But even then, Japan is not firmly in the US fold. It has made clear that the US needs to
get a deal done pronto.
By contrast, this post describes the US foot-dragging and gamesmanship to protect US agricultural
interests from competition from developing economies.
Yesterday, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman delivered his plenary statement to the trade
ministers gathered in Nairobi for the World Trade Organization's tenth ministerial conference. His
statement, which calls for the abandonment of the Doha Development Round in favor of negotiations
on new issues of more strategic interest to the United States, deserve a response from a countryman.
Mr. Froman calls on trade representatives "to move beyond the cynical repetition of positions
designed to produce deadlock." Yet this is precisely what Mr. Froman has come to Nairobi to repeat:
U.S. positions designed to produce deadlock.
He decries the lack of progress in the last 15 years of Doha negotiations, yet he fails to acknowledge
that the United States has been, and remains, the principal reason for that failure. Since 2008,
when negotiations broke down, the U.S. has refused to continue negotiating on the key issues central
to the development agenda – reducing agricultural subsidies, allowing developing countries special
protection measures for agriculture, eliminating export subsidies and credits, and a host of other
issues.
Those issues remain critical to developing countries, and U.S. intransigence in addressing those
concerns is the main reason Doha has stagnated. In addition, the U.S. has introduced new issues to
create further obstacles to progress, such as its objection to India's ambitious and laudable public
stockholding program to provide food security to fully two-thirds of its people.
The draft declaration on agriculture in Nairobi offers no progress on resolving this issue, despite
the explicit commitment in Bali and later in Geneva to find a permanent solution that can allow India
and other countries to pursue such programs.
That is not the only developing country issue left unaddressed. The declaration offers nothing
to developing countries to allow them to protect sensitive sectors from unfair or sudden import surges,
the Special Safeguard Mechanism. It offers no meaningful cuts in U.S. export credits, which have
favored U.S. exporters to Africa with some $1.25 billion in credits over the last six years.
Perhaps most notably, the declaration makes no mention of the key issue in the Doha Round: reductions
in rich country agricultural subsidies and supports. With crop prices low and a new Farm Bill authorizing
rising levels of support to U.S. farmers and exporters, this omission is a direct blow to those developing
countries which see their farmers and export prospects harmed by underpriced U.S. exports.
Nor does Mr. Froman mention cotton subsidies, an issue which the United States and the WTO membership
committed to address "expeditiously" ten long years ago in Hong Kong. The issue remains unresolved,
and the draft agriculture text fails to offer anything to Africa's C-4 cotton producing countries,
which have millions of poor farmers desperately in need of relief.
Instead, the U.S. Farm Bill promises further price suppression. According to a recent study, cotton
subsidies could total $1.5 billion, increasing U.S. exports 29% and suppressing prices by 7%. All
cotton producers in the rest of the world will suffer an estimated $3.3 billion in annual losses,
with India projected to lose $800 million per year.
The C-4 countries as a group stand to lose $80 million a year in reduced income, a huge blow to
struggling farmers in low-income countries.
Mr. Froman touts the ways U.S. policy has moved forward beyond Doha. He says the United States
extended the African Growth and Opportunity Act by a decade, "the longest extension in that program's
history." That limited extension of trade preferences to African countries last year provided a paltry
$264,000 in benefits to the C-4 countries. The projected losses from U.S. cotton dumping are 300
times greater.
Mr. Froman concludes that with a new approach that abandons the development round while taking
up issues of investment, procurement, and other matters of priority to the United States, "we can
ensure that global trade will drive development and prosperity as strongly this century as it did
in the last."
The U.S. Trade Representative seems to have conveniently forgotten that the Doha Development Round
he wants to sweep aside was a direct response to the fact that global trade rules in the last century
failed to drive development and prosperity, at least for many developing countries.
As a U.S. researcher long engaged with the issues of concern to developing countries, I find Mr.
Froman's approach shameful. Multilateralism demands engagement and compromise, particularly in a
"development round" designed to address past inequities. Mr. Froman is unfortunately offering nothing
more than "the cynical repetition of positions designed to produce deadlock." The latest in a steady
stream of U.S. hypocrisy.
By Timothy Wise, Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development
and Environment Institute, Tufts University. Originally published in
The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya)
"... "initial information that the aircraft was shot down by a [Buk] surface to air missile" did not meet the Australian or international standard of evidence …." ..."
"... What will happen to the resolve of the holdouts if the narrative on MH17 begins to veer away from rock-solid Russian ownership of the tragedy? Because that was the whole backbone of the sanctions – Crimea was not enough to get Germany and France on board, and they still needed the little push that MH17 provided. If that rationale vanished, or even if serious doubt was introduced, the whole EU position on sanctions could fall apart. ..."
"... It's bigger than I thought – there is some sort of internal power struggle going on, and West refuses to change his findings – which still point to Russia for responsibility – in spite of Donoghoe's testimony. ..."
First two paragraphs:
"The Australian Federal Police and Dutch police and prosecutors investigating the cause of the
crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 believe the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) has failed to provide "conclusive
evidence" of what type of munition destroyed the aircraft, causing the deaths of 283 passengers
and 15 crew on board.
Testifying for the first time in an international court, Detective Superintendent Andrew Donoghoe,
the senior Australian policeman in the international MH17 investigation, said a "tougher standard
than the DSB report" is required before the criminal investigation can identify the weapon which
brought the aircraft down, or pinpoint the perpetrators.
Their criminal investigation will continue
into 2016, Donoghoe told the Victorian Coroners Court (lead image) on Tuesday morning. He and
other international investigators are unconvinced by reports from the US and Ukrainian governments,
and by the DSB, of a Buk missile firing. "Dutch prosecutors require conclusive evidence on other
types of missile," Donoghoe said, intimating that "initial information that the aircraft was shot
down by a [Buk] surface to air missile" did not meet the Australian or international standard
of evidence …."
Great catch, Jen!! Wow, you're right – this is big, especially in view of
the wavering by some EU members on sanctions. I wonder what Merkel has up her sleeve; she
says Germany – while going ahead with Nord Stream II, which is "first and foremost a business
proposition" – is "seeking ways to ensure that Ukraine is not completely excluded as a transit
country".
Ummm…what role would that be? Because if, in exchange for pushing ahead on Nord Stream,
Russia is maneuvered into still sending gas through Ukraine so that Ukraine can collect transit
fees, the project would be self-defeating. I trust the business minds in Russia are sharp enough
to stay ahead of that one. Ukraine will still receive gas from Russia, if it wants it and can
pay in advance for it, but it will be for domestic supplies only and consequently not subject
to transit fees. Russia must not weaken on this, because the EU still hopes to rebuild Ukraine
using Russian money, and it cannot do it without Russian help and support. If that is withheld,
Russia only needs to wait them out.
Needless to say, Tusk supports Renzi's position, not because
he is an Italiophile but because he supports Ukraine and would like to see it remain a transit
country, and pocketing $2 Billion a year in Russian cash.
What will happen to the resolve of the holdouts if the narrative on MH17 begins to veer away
from rock-solid Russian ownership of the tragedy? Because that was the whole backbone of the sanctions
– Crimea was not enough to get Germany and France on board, and they still needed the little push
that MH17 provided. If that rationale vanished, or even if serious doubt was introduced, the whole
EU position on sanctions could fall apart.
marknesop, December 19, 2015 at 8:37 pm
It's bigger than I thought – there is some sort of internal power struggle going on,
and West refuses to change his findings – which still point to Russia for responsibility – in
spite of Donoghoe's testimony. There were revelations in the original post such as that
Australia had sought permission from the Novorossiyan authorities to collect evidence and
artifacts, as well as Kiev – thereby implicitly recognizing Novorossiya – and that when it
solicited witnesses to testify, some agreed only on the condition their names would not be
revealed, that the Ukrainian authorities would not be involved and that the investigators
would protect them. Sure sounds like they want to say something they know the Ukrainian
government will punish them for saying, if it can identify them. This whole inquiry just got
interesting again.
At the moment it looks like a faction of the Australian investigation disagrees with the pat
finding of the Dutch, but the Victorian state coroner is totally on board with the "Russia did
it" scenario and is determined to have his way no matter how foolish it makes him look. This
one could go anywhere from here.
Moscow Exile, December 19, 2015 at 11:28 pm
Clearly that Aussie cop is in the pocket of the Evil One!
Isn't he the one who said earlier that the Russian-backed terrorists at the MH-17 crash site
behaved like decent human beings and treated the crash victims' remains with dignity and did
not loot their belongings?
I mean, what a ludicrous thing to say!
Everyone knows that these Russian beasts are ….blah, blah, blah ...
davidt, December 20, 2015 at 2:03 pm
Donoghue is not the only AFP cop speaking up for the crash site locals. Their sensitivity
and humanity is a rather at odds with a disparaging comment about the AFP on these pages over
a year ago (and which I objected to at the time). I noticed last week that Patrick Armstrong
is now reconsidering the Sukhoi did it scenario because of an apparent lack of fragments from
a Buk warhead.
"... By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is ..."
"... KILLING THE HOST: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy ..."
"... What especially annoys U.S. financial strategists is that this loan by Russia's sovereign debt fund was protected by IMF lending practice, which at that time ensured collectability by withholding new credit from countries in default of foreign official debts (or at least, not bargaining in good faith to pay). To cap matters, the bonds are registered under London's creditor-oriented rules and courts. ..."
"... After the rules change, Aslund later noted, "the IMF can continue to give Ukraine loans regardless of what Ukraine does about its credit from Russia, which falls due on December 20. [8] ..."
"... The post-2010 loan packages to Greece are a notorious case in point. The IMF staff calculated that Greece could not possibly pay the balance that was set to bail out foreign banks and bondholders. Many Board members agreed (and subsequently have gone public with their whistle-blowing). Their protests didn't matter. Dominique Strauss-Kahn backed the US-ECB position (after President Barack Obama and Treasury secretary Tim Geithner pointed out that U.S. banks had written credit default swaps betting that Greece could pay, and would lose money if there were a debt writedown). In 2015, Christine Lagarde also backed the U.S.-European Central Bank hard line, against staff protests. [10] ..."
"... China and Russia harbored the fantasy that would be allowed redress in the Western Courts where international law is metered out. They are now no longer under that delusion. ..."
"... It's not Hudson but the US that has simplified the entire world situation into "good guys vs. bad guys", a policy enshrined in Rumsfeld's statement "you're either with us or you're against us". ..."
"... what is left unsaid is the choices Russia then faces once their legal options play out and the uneven playing field is fully exposed. Do they not then have a historically justifiable basis for declaring war? ..."
The nightmare scenario of U.S. geopolitical strategists seems to be coming true: foreign economic
independence from U.S. control. Instead of privatizing and neoliberalizing the world under U.S.-centered
financial planning and ownership, the Russian and Chinese governments are investing in neighboring
economies on terms that cement Eurasian economic integration on the basis of Russian oil and tax
exports and Chinese financing. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) threatens to replace
the IMF and World Bank programs that favor U.S. suppliers, banks and bondholders (with the United
States holding unique veto power).
Russia's 2013 loan to Ukraine, made at the request of Ukraine's elected pro-Russian government,
demonstrated the benefits of mutual trade and investment relations between the two countries. As
Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov points out, Ukraine's "international reserves were barely
enough to cover three months' imports, and no other creditor was prepared to lend on terms acceptable
to Kiev. Yet Russia provided $3 billion of much-needed funding at a 5 per cent interest rate, when
Ukraine's bonds were yielding nearly 12 per cent."[1]
What especially annoys U.S. financial strategists is that this loan by Russia's sovereign
debt fund was protected by IMF lending practice, which at that time ensured collectability by withholding
new credit from countries in default of foreign official debts (or at least, not bargaining in good
faith to pay). To cap matters, the bonds are registered under London's creditor-oriented rules and
courts.
On December 3 (one week before the IMF changed its rules so as to hurt Russia), Prime Minister
Putin proposed that Russia "and other Eurasian Economic Union countries should kick-off consultations
with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) on a possible economic partnership."[2]
Russia also is seeking to build pipelines to Europe through friendly instead of U.S.-backed countries.
Moving to denominate their trade and investment in their own currencies instead of dollars, China
and Russia are creating a geopolitical system free from U.S. control. After U.S. officials threatened
to derange Russia's banking linkages by cutting it off from the SWIFT interbank clearing system,
China accelerated its creation of the alternative China International Payments System (CIPS), with
its own credit card system to protect Eurasian economies from the shrill threats made by U.S. unilateralists.
Russia and China are simply doing what the United States has long done: using trade and credit
linkages to cement their geopolitical diplomacy. This tectonic geopolitical shift is a Copernican
threat to New Cold War ideology: Instead of the world economy revolving around the United States
(the Ptolemaic idea of America as "the indispensible nation"), it may revolve around Eurasia. As
long as the global financial papacy remains grounded in Washington at the offices of the IMF and
World Bank, such a shift in the center of gravity will be fought with all the power of the American
Century (indeed, American Millennium) inquisition.
Imagine the following scenario five years from now. China will have spent half a decade building
high-speed railroads, ports power systems and other construction for Asian and African countries,
enabling them to grow and export more. These exports will be coming on line to repay the infrastructure
loans. Also, suppose that Russia has been supplying the oil and gas energy needed for these projects.
To U.S. neocons this specter of AIIB government-to-government lending and investment creates fear
of a world independent of U.S. control. Nations would mint their own money and hold each other's
debt in their international reserves instead of borrowing or holding dollars and subordinating their
financial planning to the IMF and U.S. Treasury with their demands for monetary bloodletting and
austerity for debtor countries. There would be less need for foreign government to finance budget
shortfalls by selling off their key public infrastructure privatizing their economies. Instead of
dismantling public spending, the AIIB and a broader Eurasian economic union would do what the United
States itself practices, and seek self-sufficiency in basic needs such as food, technology, banking,
credit creation and monetary policy.
With this prospect in mind, suppose an American diplomat meets with the leaders of debtors to
China, Russia and the AIIB and makes the following proposal: "Now that you've got your increased
production in place, why repay? We'll make you rich if you stiff our New Cold War adversaries and
turn to the West. We and our European allies will help you assign the infrastructure to yourselves
and your supporters, and give these assets market value by selling shares in New York and London.
Then, you can spend your surpluses in the West."
How can China or Russia collect in such a situation? They can sue. But what court will recognize
their claim – that is, what court that the West would pay attention to?
That is the kind of scenario U.S. State Department and Treasury officials have been discussing
for more than a year. The looming conflict was made immediate by Ukraine's $3 billion debt to Russia
falling due by December 20, 2015. Ukraine's U.S.-backed regime has announced its intention to default.
U.S. lobbyists have just changed the IMF rules to remove a critical lever on which Russia and other
governments have long relied to enforce payment of their loans.
The IMF's Role as Enforcer of Inter-Government Debts
When it comes down to enforcing nations to pay inter-government debts, the International Monetary
Fund and Paris Club hold the main leverage. As coordinator of central bank "stabilization" loans
(the neoliberal euphemism for imposing austerity and destabilizing debtor economies, Greece-style),
the IMF is able to withhold not only its own credit but also that of governments and global banks
participating when debtor countries need refinancing. Countries that do not agree to privatize their
infrastructure and sell it to Western buyers are threatened with sanctions, backed by U.S.-sponsored
"regime change" and "democracy promotion" Maidan-style.
This was the setting on December 8, when Chief IMF Spokesman Gerry Rice announced: "The IMF's
Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to
official creditors." The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financial
arrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving
other governments. This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked
for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.
In this U.S.-centered worldview, China and Russia loom as the great potential adversaries – defined
as independent power centers from the United States as they create the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
as an alternative to NATO, and the AIIB as an alternative to the IMF and World Bank tandem. The very
name, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, implies that transportation systems and other
infrastructure will be financed by governments, not relinquished into private hands to become rent-extracting
opportunities financed by U.S.-centered bank credit to turn the rent into a flow of interest payments.
The focus on a mixed public/private economy sets the AIIB at odds with the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) and its aim of relinquishing government planning power to the financial and corporate sector
for their own short-term gains, and above all the aim of blocking government's money-creating power
and financial regulation. Chief Nomura economist Richard Koo, explained the logic of viewing the
AIIB as a threat to the US-controlled IMF: "If the IMF's rival is heavily under China's influence,
countries receiving its support will rebuild their economies under what is effectively Chinese guidance,
increasing the likelihood they will fall directly or indirectly under that country's influence."[3]
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov accused the IMF decision of being "hasty and biased."[4]
But it had been discussed all year long, calculating a range of scenarios for a long-term sea change
in international law. The aim of this change is to isolate not only Russia, but even more China in
its role as creditor to African countries and prospective AIIB borrowers. U.S. officials walked into
the IMF headquarters in Washington with the legal equivalent of financial suicide vests, having decided
that the time had come to derail Russia's ability to collect on its sovereign loan to Ukraine, and
of even larger import, China's plan for a New Silk Road integrating a Eurasian economy independent
of U.S. financial and trade control. Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the NATO-oriented Atlantic Council,
points out:
The IMF staff started contemplating a rule change in the spring of 2013 because nontraditional
creditors, such as China, had started providing developing countries with large loans. One issue
was that these loans were issued on conditions out of line with IMF practice. China wasn't a member
of the Paris Club, where loan restructuring is usually discussed, so it was time to update the rules.
The IMF intended to adopt a new policy in the spring of 2016, but the dispute over Russia's $3
billion loan to Ukraine has accelerated an otherwise slow decision-making process.[5]
The Wall Street Journal concurred that the underlying motivation for changing the IMF's rules
was the threat that Chinese lending would provide an alternative to IMF loans and its demands for
austerity. "IMF-watchers said the fund was originally thinking of ensuring China wouldn't be able
to foil IMF lending to member countries seeking bailouts as Beijing ramped up loans to developing
economies around the world."[6]
In short, U.S. strategists have designed a policy to block trade and financial agreements organized
outside of U.S. control and that of the IMF and World Bank in which it holds unique veto power.
The plan is simple enough. Trade follows finance, and the creditor usually calls the tune. That
is how the United States has used the Dollar Standard to steer Third World trade and investment since
World War II along lines benefiting the U.S. economy.
The cement of trade credit and bank lending is the ability of creditors to collect on the international
debts being negotiated. That is why the United States and other creditor nations have used the IMF
as an intermediary to act as "honest broker" for loan consortia. ("Honest broker" means in practice
being subject to U.S. veto power.) To enforce its financial leverage, the IMF has long followed the
rule that it will not sponsor any loan agreement or refinancing for governments that are in default
of debts owed to other governments. However, as the afore-mentioned Aslund explains, the IMF could
easily
change its practice of not lending into [countries in official] arrears … because it is not
incorporated into the IMF Articles of Agreement, that is, the IMF statutes. The IMF Executive
Board can decide to change this policy with a simple board majority. The IMF has lent to Afghanistan,
Georgia, and Iraq in the midst of war, and Russia has no veto right, holding only 2.39 percent
of the votes in the IMF. When the IMF has lent to Georgia and Ukraine, the other members of its
Executive Board have overruled Russia.[7]
After the rules change, Aslund later noted, "the IMF can continue to give Ukraine loans regardless
of what Ukraine does about its credit from Russia, which falls due on December 20.[8]
Inasmuch as Ukraine's official debt to Russia's sovereign debt fund was not to the U.S. Government,
the IMF announced its rules change as a "clarification." Its rule that no country can borrow if it
is in default to (or not seriously negotiating with) a foreign government was created in the post-1945
world, and has governed the past seventy years in which the United States Government, Treasury officials
and/or U.S. bank consortia have been party to nearly every international bailout or major loan agreement.
What the IMF rule really meant was that it would not provide credit to countries in arrears specifically
to the U.S. Government, not those of Russia or China.
Mikhail Delyagin, Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems, understood the IMF's double
standard clearly enough: "The Fund will give Kiev a new loan tranche on one condition that Ukraine
should not pay Russia a dollar under its $3 billion debt. Legally, everything will be formalized
correctly but they will oblige Ukraine to pay only to western creditors for political reasons."[9]
It remains up to the IMF board – and in the end, its managing director – whether or not to deem a
country creditworthy. The U.S. representative naturally has always blocked any leaders not beholden
to the United States.
The post-2010 loan packages to Greece are a notorious case in point. The IMF staff calculated
that Greece could not possibly pay the balance that was set to bail out foreign banks and bondholders.
Many Board members agreed (and subsequently have gone public with their whistle-blowing). Their protests
didn't matter. Dominique Strauss-Kahn backed the US-ECB position (after President Barack Obama and
Treasury secretary Tim Geithner pointed out that U.S. banks had written credit default swaps betting
that Greece could pay, and would lose money if there were a debt writedown). In 2015, Christine Lagarde
also backed the U.S.-European Central Bank hard line, against staff protests.[10]
IMF executive board member Otaviano Canuto, representing Brazil, noted that the logic that "conditions
on IMF lending to a country that fell behind on payments [was to] make sure it kept negotiating in
good faith to reach agreement with creditors."[11]
Dropping this condition, he said, would open the door for other countries to insist on a similar
waiver and avoid making serious and sincere efforts to reach payment agreement with creditor governments.
A more binding IMF rule is that it cannot lend to countries at war or use IMF credit to engage
in warfare. Article I
of its 1944-45 founding charter ban the fund from lending to a member state engaged in civil war
or at war with another member state, or for military purposes in general. But when IMF head Lagarde
made the last IMF loan to Ukraine, in spring 2015, she made a token gesture of stating that she hoped
there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would step up the civil
war with the Russian-speaking population in the eastern Donbass region.
The problem is that the Donbass is where most Ukrainian exports were made, mainly to Russia. That
market is being lost by the junta's belligerence toward Russia. This should have blocked Ukraine
from receiving IMF aid. Withholding IMF credit could have been a lever to force peace and adherence
to the Minsk agreements, but U.S. diplomatic pressure led that opportunity to be rejected.
The most important IMF condition being violated is that continued warfare with the East prevents
a realistic prospect of Ukraine paying back new loans. Aslund himself points to the internal contradictions
at work: Ukraine has achieved budget balance because the inflation and steep currency depreciation
has drastically eroded its pension costs. The resulting lower value of pension benefits has led to
growing opposition to Ukraine's post-Maidan junta. "Leading representatives from President Petro
Poroshenko's Bloc are insisting on massive tax cuts, but no more expenditure cuts; that would cause
a vast budget deficit that the IMF assesses at 9-10 percent of GDP, that could not possibly be financed."[12]
So how can the IMF's austerity budget be followed without a political backlash?
The IMF thus is breaking four rules: Not lending to a country that has no visible means to pay
back the loan breaks the "No More Argentinas" rule adopted after the IMF's disastrous 2001 loan.
Not lending to countries that refuse in good faith to negotiate with their official creditors goes
against the IMF's role as the major tool of the global creditors' cartel. And the IMF is now lending
to a borrower at war, indeed one that is destroying its export capacity and hence its balance-of-payments
ability to pay back the loan. Finally, the IMF is lending to a country that has little likelihood
of refuse carrying out the IMF's notorious austerity "conditionalities" on its population – without
putting down democratic opposition in a totalitarian manner. Instead of being treated as an outcast
from the international financial system, Ukraine is being welcomed and financed.
The upshot – and new basic guideline for IMF lending – is to create a new Iron Curtain splitting
the world into pro-U.S. economies going neoliberal, and all other economies, including those seeking
to maintain public investment in infrastructure, progressive taxation and what used to be viewed
as progressive capitalism. Russia and China may lend as much as they want to other governments, but
there is no international vehicle to help secure their ability to be paid back under what until now
has passed for international law. Having refused to roll back its own or ECB financial claims on
Greece, the IMF is quite willing to see repudiation of official debts owed to Russia, China or other
countries not on the list approved by the U.S. neocons who wield veto power in the IMF, World Bank
and similar global economic institutions now drawn into the U.S. orbit. Changing its rules to clear
the path for the IMF to make loans to Ukraine and other governments in default of debts owed to official
lenders is rightly seen as an escalation of America's New Cold War against Russia and also its anti-China
strategy.
Timing is everything in such ploys. Georgetown University Law professor and Treasury consultant
Anna Gelpern warned that before the "IMF staff and executive board [had] enough time to change the
policy on arrears to official creditors," Russia might use "its
notorious debt/GDP clause to accelerate the bonds at any time before December, or simply gum
up the process of reforming the IMF's arrears policy."[13]
According to this clause, if Ukraine's foreign debt rose above 60 percent of GDP, Russia's government
would have the right to demand immediate payment. But no doubt anticipating the bitter fight to come
over its attempts to collect on its loan, President Putin patiently refrained from exercising this
option. He is playing the long game, bending over backward to accommodate Ukraine rather than behaving
"odiously."
A more pressing reason deterring the United States from pressing earlier to change IMF rules was
that a waiver for Ukraine would have opened the legal floodgates for Greece to ask for a similar
waiver on having to pay the "troika" – the European Central Bank (ECB), EU commission and the IMF
itself – for the post-2010 loans that have pushed it into a worse depression than the 1930s. "Imagine
the Greek government had insisted that EU institutions accept the same haircut as the country's private
creditors," Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov asked. "The reaction in European capitals would
have been frosty. Yet this is the position now taken by Kiev with respect to Ukraine's $3 billion
eurobond held by Russia."[14]
Only after Greece capitulated to eurozone austerity was the path clear for U.S. officials to change
the IMF rules in their fight to isolate Russia. But their tactical victory has come at the cost of
changing the IMF's rules and those of the global financial system irreversibly. Other countries henceforth
may reject conditionalities, as Ukraine has done, and ask for write-downs on foreign official debts.
That was the great fear of neoliberal U.S. and Eurozone strategists last summer, after all. The
reason for smashing Greece's economy was to deter Podemos in Spain and similar movements in Italy
and Portugal from pursuing national prosperity instead of eurozone austerity. Opening the door to
such resistance by Ukraine is the blowback of America's tactic to make a short-term financial hit
on Russia while its balance of payments is down as a result of collapsing oil and gas prices.
The consequences go far beyond just the IMF. The fabric of international law itself is being torn
apart. Every action has a reaction in the Newtonian world of geopolitics. It may not be a bad thing,
to be sure, for the post-1945 global order to be broken apart by U.S. tactics against Russia, if
that is the catalyst driving other countries to defend their own economies in the legal and political
spheres. It has been U.S. neoliberals themselves who have catalyzed the emerging independent Eurasian
bloc.
Countering Russia's Ability to Collect in Britain's Law Courts
Over the past year the U.S. Treasury and State Departments have discussed ploys to block Russia
from collecting under British law, where its loans to Ukraine are registered. Reviewing the repertory
of legal excuses Ukraine might use to avoid paying Russia, Prof. Gelpern noted that it might declare
the debt "odious," made under duress or corruptly. In a paper for the Peterson Institute of International
Economics (the banking lobby in Washington) she suggested that Britain should deny Russia the use
of its courts as an additional sanction reinforcing the financial, energy, and trade sanctions to
those passed against Russia after Crimea voted to join it as protection against the ethnic cleansing
from the Right Sector, Azov Battalion and other paramilitary groups descending on the region.[15]
A kindred ploy might be for Ukraine to countersue Russia for reparations for "invading" it, for
saving Crimea and the Donbass region from the Right Sector's attempt to take over the country. Such
a ploy would seem to have little chance of success in international courts (without showing them
to be simply arms of NATO New Cold War politics), but it might delay Russia' ability to collect by
tying the loan up in a long nuisance lawsuit.
To claim that Ukraine's debt to Russia was "odious" or otherwise illegitimate, "President Petro
Poroshenko said the money was intended to ensure Yanukovych's loyalty to Moscow, and called the payment
a 'bribe,' according to an interview with Bloomberg in June this year."[16]
The legal and moral problem with such arguments is that they would apply equally to IMF and US loans.
Claiming that Russia's loan is "odious" is that this would open the floodgates for other countries
to repudiate debts taken on by dictatorships supported by IMF and U.S. lenders, headed by the many
dictatorships supported by U.S. diplomacy.
The blowback from the U.S. multi-front attempt to nullify Ukraine's debt may be used to annul
or at least write down the destructive IMF loans made on the condition that borrowers accept privatizations
favoring U.S., German and other NATO-country investors, undertake austerity programs, and buy weapons
systems such as the German submarines that Greece borrowed to pay for. As Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov noted: "This reform, which they are now trying to implement, designed to suit Ukraine only,
could plant a time bomb under all other IMF programs." It certainly showed the extent to which the
IMF is subordinate to U.S. aggressive New Cold Warriors: "Essentially, this reform boils down to
the following: since Ukraine is politically important – and it is only important because it is opposed
to Russia – the IMF is ready to do for Ukraine everything it has not done for anyone else, and the
situation that should 100 percent mean a default will be seen as a situation enabling the IMF to
finance Ukraine."[17]
Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the Committee for International Affairs at the Federation Council
(the upper house of Russia's parliament) accused the United States of playing "the role of the main
violin in the IMF while the role of the second violin is played by the European Union. These are
two basic sponsors of the Maidan – the symbol of a coup d'état in Ukraine in 2014."[18]
Putin's Counter-Strategy and the Blowback on U.S.-European and Global Relations
As noted above, having anticipated that Ukraine would seek reasons to not pay the Russian loan,
President Putin carefully refrained from exercising Russia's right to demand immediate payment when
Ukraine's foreign debt rose above 60 percent of GDP. In November he offered to defer payment if the
United States, Europe and international banks underwrote the obligation. Indeed, he even "proposed
better conditions for this restructuring than those the International Monetary Fund requested of
us." He offered "to accept a deeper restructuring with no payment this year – a payment of $1 billion
next year, $1 billion in 2017, and $1 billion in 2018." If the IMF, the United States and European
Union "are sure that Ukraine's solvency will grow," then they should "see no risk in providing guarantees
for this credit." Accordingly, he concluded "We have asked for such guarantees either from the United
States government, the European Union, or one of the big international financial institutions."
[19]
The implication, Putin pointed out, was that "If they cannot provide guarantees, this means that
they do not believe in the Ukrainian economy's future." One professor pointed out that this proposal
was in line with the fact that, "Ukraine has already received a sovereign loan guarantee from the
United States for a previous bond issue." Why couldn't the United States, Eurozone or leading commercial
banks provide a similar guarantee of Ukraine's debt to Russia – or better yet, simply lend it the
money to turn it into a loan to the IMF or US lenders?[20]
But the IMF, European Union and the United States refused to back up their happy (but nonsensical)
forecasts of Ukrainian solvency with actual guarantees. Foreign Minister Lavrov made clear just what
that rejection meant: "By having refused to guarantee Ukraine's debt as part of Russia's proposal
to restructure it, the United States effectively admitted the absence of prospects of restoring its
solvency. … By officially rejecting the proposed scheme, the United States thereby subscribed to
not seeing any prospects of Ukraine restoring its solvency."[21]
In an even more exasperated tone, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev explained to Russia's television
audience: "I have a feeling that they won't give us the money back because they are crooks. They
refuse to return our money and our Western partners not only refuse to help, but they also make it
difficult for us."[22]
Adding that "the international financial system is unjustly structured," he promised to "go to court.
We'll push for default on the loan and we'll push for default on all Ukrainian debts."
The basis for Russia's legal claim, he explained was that the loan
was a request from the Ukrainian Government to the Russian Government. If two governments reach
an agreement this is obviously a sovereign loan…. Surprisingly, however, international financial
organisations started saying that this is not exactly a sovereign loan. This is utter bull. Evidently,
it's just an absolutely brazen, cynical lie. … This seriously erodes trust in IMF decisions. I believe
that now there will be a lot of pleas from different borrower states to the IMF to grant them the
same terms as Ukraine. How will the IMF possibly refuse them?
And there the matter stands. As President Putin remarked regarding America's support of Al Qaeda,
Al Nusra and other ISIS allies in Syria, "Do you have any idea of what you have done?"
The Blowback
Few have calculated the degree to which America's New Cold War with Russia is creating a reaction
that is tearing up the world's linkages put in place since World War II. Beyond pulling the IMF and
World Bank tightly into U.S. unilateralist geopolitics, how long will Western Europe be willing to
forego its trade and investment interest with Russia? Germany, Italy and France already are feeling
the strains. If and when a break comes, it will not be marginal but a seismic geopolitical shift.
The oil and pipeline war designed to bypass Russian energy exports has engulfed the Near East
in anarchy for over a decade. It is flooding Europe with refugees, and also spreading terrorism to
America. In the Republican presidential debate on December 15, 2015, the leading issue was safety
from Islamic jihadists. Yet no candidate thought to explain the source of this terrorism in America's
alliance with Wahabist Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and hence with Al Qaeda and ISIS/Daish as a means
of destabilizing secular regimes seeking independence from U.S. control.
As its allies in this New Cold War, the United States has chosen fundamentalist jihadist religion
against secular regimes in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and earlier in Afghanistan and Turkey. Going back
to the original sin of CIA hubris – overthrowing the secular Iranian Prime Minister leader Mohammad
Mosaddegh in 1953 – American foreign policy has been based on the assumption that secular regimes
tend to be nationalist and resist privatization and neoliberal austerity.
Based on this fatal long-term assumption, U.S. Cold Warriors have aligned themselves not only
against secular regimes, but against democratic regimes where these seek to promote their own prosperity
and economic independence, and to resist neoliberalism in favor of maintaining their traditional
mixed public/private economy.
This is the back story of the U.S. fight to control the rest of the world. Tearing apart the IMF's
rules is only the most recent chapter. The broad drive against Russia, China and their prospective
Eurasian allies has deteriorated into tactics without a realistic understanding of how they are bringing
about precisely the kind of world they are seeking to prevent – a multilateral world.
Arena by arena, the core values of what used to be American and European social democratic ideology
are being uprooted. The Enlightenment's ideals of secular democracy and the rule of international
law applied equally to all nations, classical free market theory (of markets free from unearned income
and rent extraction by special vested interests), and public investment in infrastructure to hold
down the cost of living and doing business are to be sacrificed to a militant U.S. unilateralism
as "the indispensible nation." Standing above the rule of law and national interests, American neocons
proclaim that their nation's destiny is to wage war to prevent foreign secular democracy from acting
in ways other than submission to U.S. diplomacy. In practice, this means favoring special U.S. financial
and corporate interests that control American foreign policy.
This is not how the Enlightenment was supposed to turn out. Classical industrial capitalism a
century ago was expected to evolve into an economy of abundance. Instead, we have Pentagon capitalism,
finance capitalism deteriorating into a polarized rentier economy, and old-fashioned imperialism.
The Dollar Bloc's Financial Iron Curtain
By treating Ukraine's nullification of its official debt to Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund as
the new norm, the IMF has blessed its default on its bond payment to Russia. President Putin and
foreign minister Lavrov have said that they will sue in British courts. But does any court exist
in the West not under the thumb of U.S. veto?
What are China and Russia to do, faced with the IMF serving as a kangaroo court whose judgments
are subject to U.S. veto power? To protect their autonomy and self-determination, they have created
alternatives to the IMF and World Bank, NATO and behind it, the dollar standard.
America's recent New Cold War maneuvering has shown that the two Bretton Woods institutions are
unreformable. It is easier to create new institutions such as the A.I.I.B. than to retrofit old and
ill-designed ones burdened with the legacy of their vested founding interests. It is easier to expand
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization than to surrender to threats from NATO.
U.S. geostrategists seem to have imagined that if they exclude Russia, China and other SCO and
Eurasian countries from the U.S.-based financial and trade system, these countries will find themselves
in the same economic box as Cuba, Iran and other countries have been isolated by sanctions. The aim
is to make countries choose between impoverishment from such exclusion, or acquiescing in U.S. neoliberal
drives to financialize their economies and impose austerity on their government sector and labor.
What is lacking from such calculations is the idea of critical mass. The United States may use
the IMF and World Bank as levers to exclude countries not in the U.S. orbit from participating in
the global trade and financial system, and it may arm-twist Europe to impose trade and financial
sanctions on Russia. But this action produces an equal and opposite reaction. That is the eternal
Newtonian law of geopolitics. The indicated countermeasure is simply for other countries to create
their own international financial organization as an alternative to the IMF, their own "aid" lending
institution to juxtapose to the U.S.-centered World Bank.
All this requires an international court to handle disputes that is free from U.S. arm-twisting
to turn international law into a kangaroo court following the dictates of Washington. The Eurasian
Economic Union now has its own court to adjudicate disputes. It may provide an alternative Judge
Griesa's New York federal court ruling in favor of vulture funds derailing Argentina's debt negotiations
and excluding it from foreign financial markets. If the London Court of International Arbitration
(under whose rules Russia's bonds issued to Ukraine are registered) permits frivolous legal claims
(called barratry in English) such as President Poroshenko has threatened in Ukrainian Parliament,
it too will become a victim of geopolitical obsolescence.
The more nakedly self-serving and geopolitical U.S. policy is – in backing radical Islamic fundamentalist
outgrowths of Al Qaeda throughout the Near East, right-wing nationalist governments in Ukraine and
the Baltics – the greater the catalytic pressure is growing for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,
AIIB and related Eurasian institutions to break free of the post-1945 Bretton Woods system run by
the U.S. State, Defense and Treasury Departments and NATO superstructure.
The question now is whether Russia and China can hold onto the BRICS and India. So as Paul Craig
Roberts recently summarized my ideas along these lines, we are back with George Orwell's 1984
global fracture between Oceanea (the United States, Britain and its northern European NATO allies)
vs. Eurasia.
My issue with Hudson is that he tends to paint things in a "good guys/bad guys" dichotomy viz.
the IMF vs. the AIIB. Personally, I think it's quite positive that the international sovereign
finance institutions will now be more international and less unipolar, but his scenario where
Nations would mint their own money and hold each other's debt in their international
reserves instead of borrowing or holding dollars and subordinating their financial planning
to the IMF and U.S. Treasury with their demands for monetary bloodletting and austerity for
debtor countries.
is rather pie-in-the sky. What reason do we have to believe that concentrated Chinese capital
would somehow be more benevolent than our current overlords? Oh because AIIB has the word "infrastructure"
in its title (just as the Interamerican Development Bank is all about development) /sarc.
Furthermore, if US planners had half a clue about economics, they would be jumping for joy
that the AIIB and the CIPS will finally help release them (eventually) from the burden of having
the USD as the global reserve currency, thus relieving the US of the albatross of having to ship
its internal demand to China and other net exporters.
All in all, yes AIIB should be positive, but as Hudson himself points out, this is not so much
about economics as it is geopolitics. The world should tread with the utmost caution.
I think his main point is not so much about economics or geopolitics, it's about the rule of
law, specifically international law and how it applies to the debt collection brokered between
counties.
China and Russia harbored the fantasy that would be allowed redress in the Western
Courts where international law is metered out. They are now no longer under that delusion.
Even if they come up with a lending facility, the West will thwart their ability to collect
on those debts at every turn by simply declaring those debts null and void and extending new funds
using the infrastructure build by the bad (Russian/Chinese) debt as collateral. The thirst for
power and profit will always be with us, but now it will not be tempered by any international
order under the rule of law.
China is learning the hard way how the game is played. For example, they're discovering that
much of the tens of billions in no-strings attached loans given to Africa will not provide the
returns initially thought (even accounting for massive corruption on all sides), which is why
they have been reduced for the first time in a decade this past year.
Don't see how "economics" and "social" can be de-linked from "politics"…understanding the limits
of "local" may provide an awareness of the "quid pro quo" of extending, direction of extension,
and what defines (in/inter) "dependency"…how sacrifice is "shared" or imposed, and how "prosperity"
is concentrated or distributed…
It's not Hudson but the US that has simplified the entire world situation into "good guys
vs. bad guys", a policy enshrined in Rumsfeld's statement "you're either with us or you're against
us".
It's like a playground with one big bully and lots of kids running scared, now a second bully
appears and they all have to ask themselves whether Bully #2 will be nicer to them, in this case
it appears Bully #2 is saying he won't tell them how to run their lives or steal their lunch money.
Post-comet in 2000 when everything started going to hell the worst casualty has been the rule
of law, from hanging chads through to the Patriot Act, death by a thousand cuts of the Constitution,
unprosecuted war crimes, unprosecuted financial crimes, and now the very fabric of international
law being rent apart. I'm reminded of the Hunter Thompson scene where he has an expired driver's
license and a cop pulls him over, he has two choices, hand over the license and get busted, or
drive away and get busted… so he comes up with a third choice: he blows his nose all over the
license and hands it over to the cop. The equivalent of Bully #1 taking the only soccer ball on
the playground and kicking it over the fence so the game is screwed up for everybody, Pepe's "Empire
of Chaos" indeed.
1)Western economies depend on ocean transport…if chinese or ruskies destroy it, USA-EU will
be bankrupt in weeks..USA-EU are consumers and not producers..their exports to rest of world are
tiny..So,their position is very weak at this point
2)The asian countries like china-india will be forced to join hands under joint attack by US financial
system and islamic jihadists..Russia and china,former enemies,are now friends…who could have imagines
it?
Russo-chinese-iranian alliance is huge failure of US foreign policies
3)Using islamic terrorists and islamic countries like turkey-saudi arabia-pakistan-indonesia-egypt
is not going to work for USA because muslims think USA as enemy no.1…
4)A military superiority can not guarantee permanent -everlasting victory against too many opponents
What i see here is USA has made entire islamic world their enemy,alongwith china and russia
In case of real war,USA position will be very weak
This is an amazing article. Bravo!
Now it's becoming clear just what Margaret Thatcher meant when she told everyone that there was
no alternative to neoliberalism.
Thank you for continuing to mark the historical specifics of the finance/legal wing of geopolitical
conflict, and the perverse failings of Full Spectrum Dominance.
The Oceana/Eurasia dichotomy is a dangerous frame of reference. It essentially contrasts the
transport efficiencies of water to the solid defensive capacity of the frozen steppes. But when
things get bloody, they usually crack along language lines. Not only as a proxy for migrations
of the gene, but also world-views. How horse-people see things, what metaphors they use, are very
different than how cow-people categorize the world.
This highlights that Russia is continuing to operate within the language and legal framework
of the Indo-European languages. In other words (!), it is a fight between the U.S. and Russia
for European alliances. If this is the case, then the alliance of NATO with Turkic and Arabic
lines is of convenience, in that they are not partners but proxies. Europe is faced with the habit
of the U.S. in saying, Let's you and him fight. But there's an oceans difference between the U.S.
and European interests.
It also means that Russia and China are being pushed together by western exclusion, like drops
of oil on the water. I maintain that Russia has doubled down on global warming, to open up northern
sea routes and make the steppes arable. China is already a sea-power, but its massive population
will need lebensraum as the fossil-fuel support for the energy needs of megapoli decay. The mountains
are a formidable barrier for them to take the steppes by force.
The question for the rest of the world then becomes, who do you want to have as a friend in
a hundred years. Do you bet on the Wizards of Wall Street, with their Magic Money Wand of Fiat?
Or do you think Russia will ground-n-pound the fairy dust into the mud?
what is left unsaid is the choices Russia then faces once their legal options play out
and the uneven playing field is fully exposed. Do they not then have a historically justifiable
basis for declaring war?
'The Russian and Chinese governments are investing in neighboring economies on terms that
cement Eurasian economic integration.'
Whereas the U.S. is 'investing' in new military bases to cement U.S. global domination.
Guess which model actually benefits local living standards, and 'wins hearts and minds'?
Global domination as a policy goal bankrupted the USSR. It's not working for the USSA either,
as the U.S. middle class (once the envy of the world) visibly sinks into pauperization.
Thus the veracity of Michael Hudson's conclusion that 'when a break comes, it will not be marginal
but a seismic geopolitical shift.'
I get the same thrill reading Hudson the religiously devout must experience reading their bibles
or Korans – a glimpse of 'truth' as best it can be known. My first encounter was this interview
in Counterpunch:
An Interview with Michael Hudson, author of Super Imperialism That led directly to "Super
Imperialism" (and just about every book since its publication). After reading it, I was left with
the uneasy feeling that no good would come from an international monetary system that allowed
any one nation to pay its way in the world by creating money 'out of thin air' i.e. as sovereign
and private debt or, almost the same thing, Federal Reserve Notes.
The race to the bottom of off-shored jobs and industries freed from all environmental restrictions,
AKA 'globalization', had started to really kick in but it was just before Operation Iraqi Liberation
(get it?). Fundamentally, it wasn't war for oil, of course, but a war to preserve the Dollar Standard.
Recycling petrodollars bought a little time after the 1971 collapse of Bretton Woods. But with
the world's treasuries filling up with US dollars and debt, the product of the Congressional-military-industrial-complex
running wild and more recently the U.S. 0.01% successfully evading almost all forms of taxation,
some kind of control more basic than controlling the world's access to money (which basically
means credit) was required.
When people like Alan Greenspan (pretend to) come clean, you really want to look twice:
THOUGH it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the knowledge
to the economics of life are not generally realized, life in its physical aspect is fundamentally
a struggle for energy, in which discovery after discovery brings life into new relations with
the original source.
Frederick Soddy, WEALTH, VIRTUAL WEALTH AND DEBT, 2nd edition, p. 49
The world can live without American dollars, especially these days when the U.S. no longer makes
much the world needs or can afford but most obviously because it already possesses more of them
than can ever be redeemed ('debt that can't be repaid and won't be') What it can't live without
is ENERGY.
So long as most of that energy needs to be pumped out of the ground, the nation that ultimately
controls access to the pumps – or to the distribution networks required to deliver it to the ultimate
user – controls the world. This is most likely why Reagan promptly dismantled Jimmy Carter's White
House solar panels. It is why the US and its European vassals have been dragging their feet for
a half-century on the development of renewable energy sources and the electrification of transportation.
It is why the banks and Wall Street will stand solidly behind the various electrical utilities
efforts to discourage the development of any alternative energy sources from which their executives
and shareholders can not extract the last pint of blood or has Hudson more politely calls it 'economic
rent'.
P.S. Hudson seems to have a dangerous monopoly on economic truth these days. Is there anyone
else who even comes close?
"... I believe it was not there on patrol, but specifically to shoot the Russian plane down and come back ..."
"... Although I believe the Turkish map, I still think the Turks proved themselves on the side of the terrorists. ..."
"... Crossing that strip of Turkish territory by a friendly plane should not have been reason for shooting it down, only a PRETEXT. That may be the reason why the plane was shot down, because the Russians were not expecting the Turks to shoot at them. ..."
[The air force commander said 14 countries had been invited to monitor the (Russian) investigation
but only China and Britain had accepted the official offer]
Shameful.
Shelly Winters 1 day ago 5
Not sure what information this "black box" contains, but CVR's and FDR's in most all aircraft
(especially commercial jetliners) records only what the flight crew says in the cockpit and what
operational parameters the aircraft experienced i.e. throttle settings, aileron positions, pitch,
etc. It's questionable if the downed fighter aircraft's actual flight path would be stored internally
in any such device, especially a fighter aircraft operating in hostile airspace. This data the
Russians claim to have, if it really exists, could be certainly manipulated. The only true data
for flight path would be a ground radar tape pulled from two different locations in the area.
James
I said it before, I believe the radar map the Turks showed with the paths was correct. And
here are the military, but also their Religious reasons.
"War of the maps: Turkey released a map showing where Russia violated its airspace, and Russia
countered"
You can see there is a very narrow strip of Turkish territory, about a mile wide, protruding
deep into the Syrian territory. I don't know exactly the frequency of the sweep of the Turkish
radar, but still, looking at the distances between dots, you can figure out the speed. The time
to cross the Turkish strip must have been no longer than 20seconds, my initial estimate was 8,
the Turks later said 17, but that's not important. The Russian plane is seen to make a wide circle
near the Syrian border, flying much below it's maximum speed, probably looking for terrorist bases
and convoys, and which circles crossed that limb. It was flying slow and probably low, and in
circles, to get a good look. During the next cycle, I do believe the Turks warned it while flying
over Syria, 10 times during 5' not to cross that 1 mile strip again. The Russian Su-24 bomber
is seen heading for the strip the second time. Notice the Su-24 is a bomber not a dog-fighter
like the F-16 and it's older. And there were two F-16's. The Turkish map shows only one path though.
But the Russian maps shows only one too! On the Turkish map though, the F-16 is seen lurking in
the air, and at some point accelerated sharply, approaching very close and very fast, probably
in full afterburner, which is specifically reserved for attack.
I believe it was not there on patrol, but specifically to shoot the Russian plane down
and come back. At (probably) the same time, the Russian path is seen with a very sharp small
quirk. A sort of a mini-loop. I am sure they were trying to avoid incoming missiles. Their plane
got hit, and it is seen trying to accelerate, probably to flee, and then the record ends.
HOWEVER ----------------- Although I believe the Turkish map, I still think the Turks proved
themselves on the side of the terrorists.
After all, if the Russian plane was trying to get rid of the terrorists at the Turkish border,
and no HONEST state wants terrorists at it's border, and the Russians were trying to do the "dirty
job" of getting rid of them, Turkey should have been glad the Russians are helping them. But the
fact they shot the Russian plane down, proves Turkey is harboring and abetting terrorists, if
not recruits and send them itself.
Crossing that strip of Turkish territory by a friendly plane should not have been reason
for shooting it down, only a PRETEXT. That may be the reason why the plane was shot down, because
the Russians were not expecting the Turks to shoot at them.
So the Turks are not technically lying, but they ARE! The Russians probably did go through
that miserable strip, and that's the technical truth. But Turkey is defending terrorists, and
claiming it is not, that's the lie!
There are very sharp Religious reasons why they should do that, and still show the correct
map. INTERESTING.. Ever heard of Tawriyya? Let me explain it for you in short. The Koran forbids
a Muslim to lie, under penalty of the white-hot fires of Hell. But.. We already know if he becomes
a Martyr, all his sins including lies will be forgotten.
But.. for a lie, you will be forgotten, if it's technically, a truth. What does that mean?
Say, a Muslim has a $100 bill in his pocket. Somebody comes and asks him for a nickel. He will
say: I don't have a nickel in my pockets! That's Tawriya, and Allah will have no reason to send
him to Hell, because indeed he does not have a nickel in his pockets! That's a technical truth.
Erdogan, if he were asked "Are the terrorists working for you"? He could answer "Not a single
terrorist is working for me". Indeed. Not one, but thousands. Allah won't punish him for that.
He could be asked: "Why did you shoot the plane down"? and he could answer "It was flying over
our territory". He will not mention the reason was to protect his terrorists and their oil convoys.
That's "Kitman". Saying half the truth. Allah won't punish him for that either.
As for lying to the Infidels, Allah won't punish him if he does it out of fear of the Infidels.
Yes, but Islam is at perpetual war with the Infidels, until they either convert or disappear from
the face of the Earth by any means, so orders Allah. So being at war with ANY infidel, a Muslim
can lie to an Infidel all day and all night long! BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS AT WAR WITH ALL INFIDELS,
UNTIL THERE ARE NO MORE INFIDELS! SO ORDERS ALLAH! DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT MEANS?
BUT THE TOUGHEST OF ALL IS THE "MURUNA" DOCTRINE. That literally explains terrorism. If you
get to understand, you will be very surprised, of how you didn't know it.
If you want to find what terrorism is, and why Erdogan himself, said "There is no moderate
and extremist Islam. There is only Islam". And he knew what he was talking about, learn more.
So find the MURUNA concept or doctrine. You can find a better explanation here:
You can look on Google for this: "Knowing Four Arabic Words May Save Our Civilization from
Islamic Takeover"
And save it before it disappears.
Remember, you won't win any battle not knowing your enemy first.
BTW, did you know where the expression "the writing is on the wall" comes from? I's origin
is also explained there.
"... Ukraine remains committed ... to negotiating in good faith a consensual restructuring of the December 2015 Eurobonds, Nonsense, they are nothing but thieves in suits; Fascist politicians stealing from the taxpayers in the USA, EU, Russia and the Ukraine. You supporters of modern Fascism are disgusting little NeoCon trolls, yes you are! ..."
"... Under this IMF restructuring deal with the Ukraine, the oligarchs mandated that Monsanto GMO comes in. Now the once fertile farms will grow poisoned food. ... They also mandated hydraulic fracking rights to Exxon and BP. Now the aquifers will be poisoned. ... Moreover, the IMF social chapter destroys family values and requires that corrosive gay propaganda be thrust into the children's minds. ... Welcome to the new Globalist Business Model. ..."
"... The Ukraine is like a dying carcass. ... The EU jackals are howling, the IMF vultures are circling, and the NATO hyenas are picking the flesh off of the bones. ..."
"... Ukraine's Finance Minister, who promised in the above Reuters article today Dec 18, 2015, to talk in good faith with the Russian Federation about their $3 Billion Loan due and payable on Dec 15, as of today is in Default on that $3 Billion Loan , and therefore isn't eligible to receive any Loan from the IMF, headed by Chief Lagarde who must now stand trial for an improper loan of $434 Million . ..."
"... Good faith? They actually mean bait and switch ..."
"... The deadbeat American lackeys in Kiev have no intention of paying their debts to Russia because Washington DC is run by thieves and immoral people. You know this is true. ..."
"... Meanwhile Ukraine has restricted air travel, cutoff Crimea, and fought efforts to grant autonomy to Russian-speaking regions. With unpaid debt, the country still stokes war with Russia after being warned by Mr. Kerry to stop. ..."
"Ukraine remains committed ... to negotiating in good faith a consensual restructuring of
the December 2015 Eurobonds," Nonsense, they are nothing but thieves in suits; Fascist
politicians stealing from the taxpayers in the USA, EU, Russia and the Ukraine. You supporters
of modern Fascism are disgusting little NeoCon trolls, yes you are!
Robert
This is the new Globalist Business Model.
Overthrow a sovereign country by revolution or outright bombing campaign.
Appoint oligarchs to run it and fascists to rule the streets.
Rack the country with unpardonable debt.
Bring in the IMF and other global banks to 'restructure' the economy.
Loot the country's resources by selling off the infrastructure for pennies on the
dollar.
Impose huge austerity programs. ... Cuts pensions in half and double basic living costs.
Finally, colonialize the citizens under multi-national corporate rule where the people
have little or no say.
Under this IMF restructuring deal with the Ukraine, the oligarchs mandated that Monsanto
GMO comes in. Now the once fertile farms will grow poisoned food. ... They also mandated
hydraulic fracking rights to Exxon and BP. Now the aquifers will be poisoned. ... Moreover,
the IMF social chapter destroys family values and requires that corrosive gay propaganda be
thrust into the children's minds. ... Welcome to the new Globalist Business Model.
The Ukraine is like a dying carcass. ... The EU jackals are howling, the IMF vultures are
circling, and the NATO hyenas are picking the flesh off of the bones.
Algis
Russia needs to take payment out of their proverbial hides. No one consider it unjustified
except a few brainwashed Americans and of course the immoral and corrupt ruling class of the
Empire!
new_federali...
Ukraine's Finance Minister, who promised in the above Reuters article today Dec 18, 2015,
to talk in good faith with the Russian Federation about their $3 Billion Loan due and payable
on Dec 15, as of today is in Default on that $3 Billion Loan , and therefore isn't eligible to
receive any Loan from the IMF, headed by Chief Lagarde who must now stand trial for an
improper loan of $434 Million .
Therefore, Gold did achieve an all-important triple bottom at $1,050 per ounce this week,
and is now in a furious rally up $15 to $1,065 per ounce as DXY (U.S. Dollar Index) falls
sharply today due to utter failure of U.S.- led IMF to rescue Ukraine from Financial Collapse
today -- Thus Gold will now rally sharply through at least Feb 2016 when Gold will be at $1,500
per ounce, and ultimately going to new all-time highs above $2,000 per ounce -- Dec 18, 2015 at
11:53 a.m. PST.
Commenter
Good faith? They actually mean bait and switch
Algis
The deadbeat American lackeys in Kiev have no intention of paying their debts to Russia
because Washington DC is run by thieves and immoral people. You know this is true.
RonP
Meanwhile Ukraine has restricted air travel, cutoff Crimea, and fought efforts to grant
autonomy to Russian-speaking regions. With unpaid debt, the country still stokes war with
Russia after being warned by Mr. Kerry to stop.
"... "Now, is there a way of us constructing a bridge, creating a political transition, that allows those who are allied with Assad right now, allows the Russians, allows the Iranians to ensure that their equities are respected, that minorities like the Alawites are not crushed or retribution is not the order of the day? I think that's going to be very important as well." ..."
"... Seymour Hersh Links Turkey to Benghazi, Syria and Sarin ..."
"... The assessment of the Defense Intelligence Agency is that the sarin was supplied by Turkey to elements in Ghouta with the intent of "push[ing] Obama over the red line. " Intercepted transmissions from Turkish operators in the aftermath of the attack are jubilant, and the success of their covert mission must have seemed well in hand. Obama's implicit call to war in the coming month was proof of that. ..."
Following June elections in which AKP lost its absolute parliamentary majority thanks in part to
a stronger than expected showing at the polls by the pro-Kurdish HDP, Turkish President Recip Tayyip
Erdogan began to lose his mind.
The vote put in jeopardy Erdogan's bid to effectively rewrite the country's constitution on the
way to consolidating his power in an executive presidency. That decisively undesirable outcome could
not stand and so Erdogan did what any respectable autocrat would do: he nullified the election. First,
the President undermined the coalition building process so he could call for new elections. Next,
he fanned the flames of civil war and reignited a long-simmering conflict with the PKK. The idea
was to scare the electorate into believing that a "strong" AKP government was the only antidote to
domestic and international terror. Finally, Erdogan cracked down on the press and anyone else critical
of his rule. AKP was also suspected of covertly backing attacks on HDP offices and newspapers. Some
(i.e. the PKK) went so far as to suggest that Erdogan secretly worked with Sunni extremists to orchestrate
suicide bombings - in other words, there's speculation Erdogan terrorized his own people.
Sure enough, AKP had a better showing at re-do elections last month, but by that point, Erdogan
was on the fast track to dictatorial delirium. On November 24, he shot down a Russian fighter jet
near the border with Syria in the first such direct military confrontation between Russia and a NATO
member in at least six decades. And the madness didn't stop there. After Putin and the Russian MoD
laid out their case against Ankara's role in financing Islamic State via Turkey's complicity in the
group's lucrative oil trafficking business, Turkey sent hundreds of troops and around two dozen tanks
to Bashiqa in Iraq which is right on the crude smuggling route. The deployment infuriated Baghdad
and after Turkey refused to pull the troops out, Iraq went to the UN Security Council. Subsequently,
Turkish troops were "attacked" by Islamic State.
The Turks claim that Iraq invited them in the past, a contention Baghdad vehemently denies. Thanks
to Barzani and the Kurds, Ankara gets to claim that at least someone welcomes the Turkish troop presence
(remember, despite Erdogan's hatred of the PKK and the YPG, Turkey is friendly with Erbil, which
relies on Turkey to get some 630,000 b/d of what is technically illegal crude to market).
Well, for anyone who thought Turkey might be set to bow to international pressure by moving its
troops north and thus back towards the Turkey-Iraq border, think again because on Saturday,
Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu was out with a series of declarations that seem to suggest Turkey
is going full-belligerent-retard as Erdogan scrambles to preserve the "Assad must go" narrative on
the way to securing whatever Ankara's interests are in both Iraq and Syria.
First, Davutoglu said that the provision of training to the Peshmerga and Mosul militiamen is
"in line with a request from Iraq authorities and as such, the mission in Iraq will continue
"until Mosul is freed" from ISIS.
Ok, so two things there. The deployment is not "in line with a request from Iraq." At this point,
Turkey's position has moved from comically absurd to maddeningly obstinate. How many times does Baghdad
have to say that Turkey isn't invited before NATO forces Turkey to drop the "they told us we could
be here" line? Further, the idea that Turkey will stay until Mosul "is liberated" from ISIS,
means Erdogan plans to remain in Iraq indefinitely. As we've documented on several occasions,
an operation to retake Mosul is for all intents and purposes a pipe dream and if Turkey intends to
wait it out, the troops and tanks could be there for years.
Next, Davutoglu claims that the Islamic State attacks on Turkish positions in Bashiqa prove Turkey
"is right." "Right" about what, it's not clear, but what's interesting is that the attacks came just
as ISIS launched its first major offensive in northern Iraq since July in a move that US officials
say was likely designed to disrupt preparations for an assault on Mosul. The point: all of this is
rather conveniently timed.
Davutoglu then slammed a UN Security Council resolution agreed in New York on Friday. The meeting
of foreign ministers was
tipped by John Kerry in Moscow on Tuesday and when discussions ended, diplomats adopted a resolution
which purports to draw a road map for ending the war in Syria. As
WSJ notes, the resolution "left unresolved divisions among world powers on key issues
in the conflict."
Which "key issues", you ask? Well, the only ones that matter - namely, i) the fate of Bashar al-Assad
and ii) which groups should be recognized as "terrorists" and which should be awarded the "moderate
opposition" badge.
"Both issues were left out of the resolution after an hourslong meeting of foreign ministers in
New York on Friday failed to reach a compromise and at one point verged on collapse," WSJ goes on
the recount, adding that "Russian and Iranian diplomats said the question of Mr. Assad wasn't
discussed on Friday because neither of their countries would accept a deal that calls for Mr. Assad's
exit, even at the end of a political transition period."
As we've said on too many occasions to count, Syria is absolutely critical for Tehran when it
comes to preserving Iranian influence and ensuring that the so-called "Shiite crescent" doesn't wane.
For Russia, this is a chance to supplant the US as Mid-East superpower puppet master and Moscow isn't
about to see it slip away by agreeing to a resolution that makes Assad's ouster a foregone conclusion.
For Turkey, the absence of a decision on Assad's future is maddening. The Security Council resolution
"lacks realistic perspective," Davutoglu said on Saturday, before adding that the
"Syria crisis can only be solved if Bashar al-Assad leaves power."
Consider that, and consider the fact that, as we reported yesterday, Ankara is now establishing
a military base in Qatar in order that the two country's might work more closely on tackling "common
enemies."
What we're beginning to see here is the formation of three alliances in the Mid-East: 1) Russia,
Iran, Syria, and Iraq; 2) Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar; 3) Britain, France, and Germany. The first
alliance is pro-Assad, anti-terror. The second is anti-Assad, pro-Sunni extremist. The third is anti-Assad
(although less vehemently so), anti-terror (conspiracy theories aside). Note that we've left the
US out. Why? Because Washington is now stuck. The US wants desperately to maintain coordination with
Ankara, Riyadh, and Doha, but between stepped up media coverage of Saudi Arabia's role in underwriting
extremism (via the promotion of Wahhabism) and hightened scrutiny on Erdogan's role in financing
terrorists, the position is becoming increasingly untenable. But aligning solely with the UK, France,
and Germany entails adopting a more conciliatory approach to Assad - just ask Berlin which, as
we reported on Friday, is now working with Assad's intelligence police and may soon establish
a base in Damascus.
With that in mind, we'll close with the following from Obama, which underscores the extent to
which the US is now thoroughly confused as to what to do next:
"Now, is there a way of us constructing a bridge, creating a political transition, that
allows those who are allied with Assad right now, allows the Russians, allows the Iranians to
ensure that their equities are respected, that minorities like the Alawites are not crushed or
retribution is not the order of the day? I think that's going to be very important as well."
First try the sarin gas supplying war criminal, Erdogan
Turkey supplied the sarin that killed over 1300 Syrians in Ghouta to try to get the Nobel Prize
Winner to bomb Assad into oblivion
Seymour Hersh Links Turkey to Benghazi, Syria and Sarin
The assessment of the Defense Intelligence Agency is that the sarin was supplied
by Turkey to elements in Ghouta with the intent of "push[ing] Obama over the red line."
Intercepted transmissions from Turkish operators in the aftermath of the attack are jubilant,
and the success of their covert mission must have seemed well in hand. Obama's implicit call to
war in the coming month was proof of that.
There aren't that many Turkish troops in Iraq, they can be removed with Iraqi Army and Shiite
militia ground troops. The Russian can fly CAP but they shouldn't be involved beyond that. The
purpose of Erdogan's insanities is to goad Putin into doing something that will bring NATO against
him. He's been wise enough to avoid that so far. The Western economies are a gnats eyelash from
collapse so all he needs to so is wait. Maybe selling a few shares of SPY at the right time would
help or giving a few billion to some untracable players who call for delivery on their gold futures.
I hope he's patient, the end-game is upon us but the fewer nukes that get used the better.
Israel, where are you in all of this? Oh, see below:
Forget Qatar/Russia pipelines.
Israel/Turkey/US/NATO connection found here: "That would allow Turkey to reduce its energy
dependence on Russia and open up a new market for Israeli and U.S. developers of a new natural
gas project off the Israeli coast." (WSJ)
Nat Gas in Israel waters: "Israel has proposed that EU countries invest in a multi-billion
euro pipeline to carry its natural gas to the continent, noting that the supply from Israel would
reduce Europe's current dependence on natural gas from Russia." (Start Up-Israel)
"... "Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt, and that incompetence, ineptitude, lack of accountability is now dangerous Carly won the sound bite of the century award with that one! ..."
"... I voted for this turd because you Rightwingnut Fuckheads gave me the option of McCain the first time and Romney the second time. ..."
I expect the lies....but the level of lies when it comes to "fighting ISIS" is off-the-fucking-charts!...and
no one calls him on it!
>The USA/NATO Created ISIS.
>The USA/NATO is using ISIS to oust ASSAD because he's too friendly with Russia/Iran.
>The USA/NATO FUNDS ISIS via Turkey.
Obama: "ISIS is a seriously threat, they are contained and we will destroy ISIS"
Bill Clintons' mouth has got to be gaping; and I'm sure thoroughly impressed that Obama could
tell a whopper like that without question...NOT ONE REPUBLICAN at the debate even called Obama
on ISIS!
"Our government has become incompetent, unresponsive, corrupt, and that incompetence, ineptitude,
lack of accountability is now dangerous" Carly won the sound bite of the century award with that
one!
..and the new budget bill will fully fund ALL OF IT's desires....
I voted for "this turd" because you Rightwingnut Fuckheads gave me the option of McCain
the first time and Romney the second time.
You're welcome for my vote saving you from those fuckheads...McCain would have nuked the planet
by now and Romney would have handed the country to his VC friends and you'd be living in a "dorm"
putting together iPhones.
Romney criticised Obama in one of the debates because "The number of battleships in our fleet
is the lowest since the 50's"...battleships? Romney, you stupid fuck, it's 20xx you moron...battleships
are pretty irrelevent in today's "theater of war"...Obama held it together and replied, I give
the Admirals EVERYTHING THEY ASK FOR...and Romney dropped it.
"... Any serious discussion of Fed policy would note that the banking industry appears to have a grossly disproportionate say in the country's monetary policy. ..."
But what is even more striking is the Post's ability to
treat the Fed a neutral party when the evidence is so
overwhelming in the opposite direction. The majority of
the Fed's 12 district bank presidents have long been
pushing for a rate hike. While there are some doves among
this group, most notably Charles Evans, the Chicago bank
president, and Narayana Kocherlakota, the departing
president of the Minneapolis bank, most of this group has
publicly pushed for higher rate hikes for some time. By
contrast, the governors who are appointed through the
democratic process, have been far more cautious about
raising rates.
It should raise serious concerns that the bank
presidents, who are appointed through a process dominated
by the banking industry, has such a different perspective
on the best path forward for monetary policy. With only
five of the seven governor slots currently filled, there
are as many presidents with voting seats on the Fed's Open
Market Committee as governors. In total, the governors are
outnumbered at meetings by a ratio of twelve to five.
Any serious discussion of Fed policy would note that
the banking industry appears to have a grossly
disproportionate say in the country's monetary policy.
Furthermore, it seems determined to use that influence to
push the Fed on a path that slows growth and reduces the
rate of job creation. The Post somehow missed this story
or at least would prefer that the rest of us not take
notice.
Looks like growth of financial sector represents direct threat to the society
Notable quotes:
"... Perhaps the financialization of the economy and rising inequality leads to a corruption of the political process which leads to monetary, currency and fiscal policy such that labor markets are loose and inflation is low. ..."
"... Growth of the non-financial-sector == growth in productivity ..."
"... In complex subject matters, even the most competent person joining a company has to become familiar with the details of the products, the industry niche, the processes and professional/personal relationships in the company or industry, etc. All these are not really teachable and require between months and years in the job. This represents a significant sunk cost. Sometimes (actually rather often) experience within the niche/industry is in a degree portable between companies, but some company still had to employ enough people to build this experience, and it cannot be readily bought by bringing in however competent freshers. ..."
Working Paper: : In the years since 1980, there has been a well-documented upward redistribution
of income. While there are some differences by methodology and the precise years chosen, the top
one percent of households have seen their income share roughly double from 10 percent in 1980
to 20 percent in the second decade of the 21st century. As a result of this upward redistribution,
most workers have seen little improvement in living standards from the productivity gains over
this period.
This paper argues that the bulk of this upward redistribution comes from the growth
of rents in the economy in four major areas: patent and copyright protection, the financial sector,
the pay of CEOs and other top executives, and protectionist measures that have boosted the pay
of doctors and other highly educated professionals. The argument on rents is important because,
if correct, it means that there is nothing intrinsic to capitalism that led to this rapid rise
in inequality, as for example argued by Thomas Piketty.
"...the growth of finance capitalism was what would kill capitalism off..."
"Financialization" is a short-cut terminology that in full is term either "financialization
of non-financial firms" or "financialization of the means of production." In either case it leads
to consolidation of firms, outsourcing, downsizing, and offshoring to reduce work force and wages
and increase rents.
Consolidation, the alpha and omega of financialization can only be executed with very liquid
financial markets, big investment banks to back necessary leverage to make the proffers, and an
acute capital gains tax preference relative to dividends and interest earnings, the grease to
liquidity.
It takes big finance to do "financialization" and it takes "financialization" to extract big
rents while maintaining low wages.
Finance sector as percent of US GDP, 1860-present: the growth of the rentier economy
[graph]
Financialization is a term sometimes used in discussions of financial capitalism which developed
over recent decades, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity) and financial
markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics.
Financialization is a term that describes an economic system or process that attempts to reduce
all value that is exchanged (whether tangible, intangible, future or present promises, etc.) either
into a financial instrument or a derivative of a financial instrument. The original intent of
financialization is to be able to reduce any work-product or service to an exchangeable financial
instrument... Financialization also makes economic rents possible...financial leverage tended
to override capital (equity) and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial
economy and agricultural economics...
Companies are not able to invest in new physical capital equipment or buildings because they
are obliged to use their operating revenue to pay their bankers and bondholders, as well as junk-bond
holders. This is what I mean when I say that the economy is becoming financialized. Its aim is
not to provide tangible capital formation or rising living standards, but to generate interest,
financial fees for underwriting mergers and acquisitions, and capital gains that accrue mainly
to insiders, headed by upper management and large financial institutions. The upshot is that the
traditional business cycle has been overshadowed by a secular increase in debt.
Instead of labor earning more, hourly earnings have declined in real terms. There has been
a drop in net disposable income after paying taxes and withholding "forced saving" for social
Security and medical insurance, pension-fund contributions and–most serious of all–debt service
on credit cards, bank loans, mortgage loans, student loans, auto loans, home insurance premiums,
life insurance, private medical insurance and other FIRE-sector charges. ... This diverts spending
away from goods and services.
In the United States, probably more money has been made through the appreciation of real estate
than in any other way. What are the long-term consequences if an increasing percentage of savings
and wealth, as it now seems, is used to inflate the prices of already existing assets - real estate
and stocks - instead of to create new production and innovation?
Your graph shows something I've been meaning to suggest for a while. Take a look at the last time
that the financial sector share of GDP rose. The late 1920's. Which was followed by the Great
Depression which has similar causes as our Great Recession. Here is my observation.
Give that Wall Street clowns a huge increase in our national income and we don't get more services
from them. What we get is screwed on the grandest of scales.
BTW - there is a simple causal relationship that explains both the rise in the share of financial
sector income/GDP and the massive collapses of the economy (1929 and 2007). It is called stupid
financial deregulation. First we see the megabanks and Wall Street milking the system for all
its worth and when their unhanded and often secretive risk taking falls apart - the rest of bear
the brunt of the damage.
Which is why this election is crucial. Elect a Republican and we repeat this mistake again.
Elect a real progressive and we can put in place the types of financial reforms FDR was known
for.
" and it takes "financialization" to extract big rents while maintaining low wages."
It takes governmental macro policy to maintain loose labor markets and low wages. Perhaps
the financialization of the economy and rising inequality leads to a corruption of the political
process which leads to monetary, currency and fiscal policy such that labor markets are loose
and inflation is low.
[Anne gave you FIRE sector profits as a share of GDP while this gives FIRE sector profits as a
share of total corporate profits.]
*
[Smoking gun excerpt:]
"...The financial system has grown rapidly since the early 1980s. In the 1950s, the financial
sector accounted for about 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Today, that figure has more
than doubled, to 6.5 percent. The sector's yearly rate of growth doubled after 1980, rising to
a peak of 7.5 percent of GDP in 2006. As finance has grown in relative size it has also grown
disproportionately more profitable. In 1950, financial-sector profits were about 8 percent of
overall U.S. profits-meaning all the profit earned by any kind of business enterprise in the country.
By the 2000s, they ranged between 20 and 40 percent...
If you want to know what happened to economic equality in this country, one word will explain
a lot of it: financialization. That term refers to an increase in the size, scope, and power of
the financial sector-the people and firms that manage money and underwrite stocks, bonds, derivatives,
and other securities-relative to the rest of the economy.
The financialization revolution over the past thirty-five years has moved us toward greater
inequality in three distinct ways. The first involves moving a larger share of the total national
wealth into the hands of the financial sector. The second involves concentrating on activities
that are of questionable value, or even detrimental to the economy as a whole. And finally, finance
has increased inequality by convincing corporate executives and asset managers that corporations
must be judged not by the quality of their products and workforce but by one thing only: immediate
income paid to shareholders.
The financial system has grown rapidly since the early 1980s. In the 1950s, the financial sector
accounted for about 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Today, that figure has more than
doubled, to 6.5 percent. The sector's yearly rate of growth doubled after 1980, rising to a peak
of 7.5 percent of GDP in 2006. As finance has grown in relative size it has also grown disproportionately
more profitable. In 1950, financial-sector profits were about 8 percent of overall U.S. profits-meaning
all the profit earned by any kind of business enterprise in the country. By the 2000s, they ranged
between 20 and 40 percent. This isn't just the decline of profits in other industries, either.
Between 1980 and 2006, while GDP increased five times, financial-sector profits increased sixteen
times over. While financial and nonfinancial profits grew at roughly the same rate before 1980,
between 1980 and 2006 nonfinancial profits grew seven times while financial profits grew sixteen
times.
This trend has continued even after the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent financial reforms,
including the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Financial profits
in 2012 were 24 percent of total profits, while the financial sector's share of GDP was 6.8 percent.
These numbers are lower than the high points of the mid-2000s; but, compared to the years before
1980, they are remarkably high.
This explosion of finance has generated greater inequality. To begin with, the share of the
total workforce employed in the financial sector has barely budged, much less grown at a rate
equivalent to the size and profitability of the sector as a whole. That means that these swollen
profits are flowing to a small sliver of the population: those employed in finance. And financiers,
in turn, have become substantially more prominent among the top 1 percent. Recent work by the
economists Jon Bakija, Adam Cole, and Bradley T. Heim found that the percentage of those in the
top 1 percent of income working in finance nearly doubled between 1979 and 2005, from 7.7 percent
to 13.9 percent.
If the economy had become far more productive as a result of these changes, they could have
been worthwhile. But the evidence shows it did not. Economist Thomas Philippon found that financial
services themselves have become less, not more, efficient over this time period. The unit cost
of financial services, or the percentage of assets it costs to produce all financial issuances,
was relatively high at the dawn of the twentieth century, but declined to below 2 percent between
1901 and 1960. However, it has increased since the 1960s, and is back to levels seen at the early
twentieth century. Whatever finance is doing, it isn't doing it more cheaply.
In fact, the second damaging trend is that financial institutions began to concentrate more
and more on activities that are worrisome at best and destructive at worst. Harvard Business School
professors Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein argue that between 1980 and 2007 the growth in
financial-industry revenues came from two things: asset management and loan origination. Fees
associated either with asset management or with household credit in particular were responsible
for 74 percent of the growth in financial-sector output over that period.
The asset management portion reflects the explosion of mutual funds, which increased from $134
billion in assets in 1980 to $12 trillion in 2007. Much of it also comes from "alternative investment
vehicles" like hedge funds and private equity. Over this time, the fee rate for mutual funds fell,
but fees associated with alternative investment vehicles exploded. This is, in essence, money
for nothing-there is little evidence that hedge funds actually perform better than the market
over time. And, unlike mutual funds, alternative investment funds do not fully disclose their
practices and fees publicly.
Beginning in 1980 and continuing today, banks generate less and less of their income from interest
on loans. Instead, they rely on fees, from either consumers or borrowers. Fees associated with
household credit grew from 1.1 percent of GDP in 1980 to 3.4 percent in 2007. As part of the unregulated
shadow banking sector that took over the financial sector, banks are less and less in the business
of holding loans and more and more concerned with packaging them and selling them off. Instead
of holding loans on their books, banks originate loans to sell off and distribute into this new
type of banking sector.
Again, if this "originate-to-distribute" model created value for society, it could be a worthwhile
practice. But, in fact, this model introduced huge opportunities for fraud throughout the lending
process. Loans-such as "securitized mortgages" made up of pledges of the income stream from subprime
mortgage loans-were passed along a chain of buyers until someone far away held the ultimate risk.
Bankers who originated the mortgages received significant commissions, with virtually no accountability
or oversight. The incentive, in fact, was perverse: find the worst loans with the biggest fees
instead of properly screening for whether the loans would be any good for investors.
The same model made it difficult, if not impossible, to renegotiate bad mortgages when the
system collapsed. Those tasked with tackling bad mortgages on behalf of investors had their own
conflicts of interests, and found themselves profiting while loans struggled. This process created
bad debts that could never be paid, and blocked attempts to try and rework them after the fact.
The resulting pool of bad debt has been a drag on the economy ever since, giving us the fall in
median wages of the Great Recession and the sluggish recovery we still live with.
And of course it's been an epic disaster for the borrowers themselves. Many of them, we now
know, were moderate- and lower-income families who were in no financial position to borrow as
much as they did, especially under such predatory terms and with such high fees. Collapsing home
prices and the inability to renegotiate their underwater mortgages stripped these folks of whatever
savings they had and left them in deep debt, widening even further the gulf of inequality in this
country.
Moreover, financialization isn't just confined to the financial sector itself. It's also ultimately
about who controls, guides, and benefits from our economy as a whole. And here's the last big
change: the "shareholder revolution," started in the 1980s and continuing to this very day, has
fundamentally transformed the way our economy functions in favor of wealth owners.
To understand this change, compare two eras at General Electric. This is how business professor
Gerald Davis describes the perspective of Owen Young, who was CEO of GE almost straight through
from 1922 to 1945: "[S]tockholders are confined to a maximum return equivalent to a risk premium.
The remaining profit stays in the enterprise, is paid out in higher wages, or is passed on to
the customer." Davis contrasts that ethos with that of Jack Welch, CEO from 1981 to 2001; Welch,
Davis says, believed in "the shareholder as king-the residual claimant, entitled to the [whole]
pot of earnings."
This change had dramatic consequences. Economist J. W. Mason found that, before the 1980s,
firms tended to borrow funds in order to fuel investment. Since 1980, that link has been broken.
Now when firms borrow, they tend to use the money to fund dividends or buy back stocks. Indeed,
even during the height of the housing boom, Mason notes, "corporations were paying out more than
100 percent of their cash flow to shareholders."
This lack of investment is obviously holding back our recovery. Productive investment remains
low, and even extraordinary action by the Federal Reserve to make investments more profitable
by keeping interest rates low has not been able to counteract the general corporate presumption
that this money should go to shareholders. There is thus less innovation, less risk taking, and
ultimately less growth. One of the reasons this revolution was engineered in the 1980s was to
put a check on what kinds of investments CEOs could make, and one of those investments was wage
growth. Finance has now won the battle against wage earners: corporations today are reluctant
to raise wages even as the economy slowly starts to recover. This keeps the economy perpetually
sluggish by retarding consumer demand, while also increasing inequality.
How can these changes be challenged? The first thing we must understand is the scope of the
change. As Mason writes, the changes have been intellectual, legal, and institutional. At the
intellectual level, academic research and conventional wisdom among economists and policymakers
coalesced around the ideas that maximizing returns to shareholders is the only goal of a corporation,
and that the financial markets were always right. At the legal level, laws regulating finance
at the state level were overturned by the Supreme Court or preempted by federal regulators, and
antitrust regulations were gutted by the Reagan administration and not taken up again.
At the institutional level, deregulation over several administrations led to a massive concentration
of the financial sector into fewer, richer firms. As financial expertise became more prestigious
than industry-specific knowledge, CEOs no longer came from within the firms they represented but
instead from other firms or from Wall Street; their pay was aligned through stock options, which
naturally turned their focus toward maximizing stock prices. The intellectual and institutional
transformation was part of an overwhelming ideological change: the health and strength of the
economy became identified solely with the profitability of the financial markets.
This was a bold revolution, and any program that seeks to change it has to be just as bold
intellectually. Such a program will also require legal and institutional changes, ones that go
beyond making sure that financial firms can fail without destroying the economy. Dodd-Frank can
be thought of as a reaction against the worst excesses of the financial sector at the height of
the housing bubble, and as a line of defense against future financial panics. Many parts of it
are doing yeoman's work in curtailing the financial sector's abuses, especially in terms of protecting
consumers from fraud and bringing some transparency to the Wild West of the derivatives markets.
But the scope of the law is too limited to roll back these larger changes.
One provision of Dodd-Frank, however, suggests a way forward. At the urging of the AFL-CIO,
Dodd-Frank empowered the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine the activities of private
equity firms on behalf of their investors. At around $3.5 trillion, private equity is a massive
market with serious consequences for the economy as a whole. On its first pass, the SEC found
extensive abuses. Andrew Bowden, the director of the SEC's examinations office, stated that the
agency found "what we believe are violations of law or material weaknesses in controls over 50
percent of the time."
Lawmakers could require private equity and hedge funds to standardize their disclosures of
fees and holdings, as is currently the case for mutual funds. The decline in fees for mutual funds
noted above didn't just happen by itself; it happened because the law structured the market for
actual transparency and price competition. This will need to happen again for the broader financial
sector.
But the most important change will be intellectual: we must come to understand our economy
not as simply a vehicle for capital owners, but rather as the creation of all of us, a common
endeavor that creates space for innovation, risk taking, and a stronger workforce. This change
will be difficult, as we will have to alter how we approach the economy as a whole. Our wealth
and companies can't just be strip-mined for a small sliver of capital holders; we'll need to bring
the corporation back to the public realm. But without it, we will remain trapped inside an economy
that only works for a select few.
[Whew!]
Puerto Barato said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron,
"3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Today, that figure has more than doubled, to 6.5"
~~RC AKA Darryl, Ron ~
Growth of the non-financial-sector == growth in productivity
Growth of the financial-sector == growth in upward transfer of wealth
Ostensibly financial-sector is there to protect your money from being eaten up by inflation.
Closer inspection shows that the prevention of *eaten up* is by the method of rent collection.
Accountants handle this analysis poorly, but you can see what is happening. Boiling it down
to the bottom line you can easily see that wiping out the financial sector is the remedy to the
Piketty.
Hell! Financial sector wiped itself out in 008. Problem was that the GSE and administration
brought the zombie back to life then put the vampire back at our throats. What was the precipitating
factor that snagged the financial sector without warning?
Unexpected
deflation
!
Gimme some
of that
pgl said in reply to djb...
People like Brad DeLong have noted this for a while. Twice as many people making twice as much
money per person. And their true value to us - not a bit more than it was back in the 1940's.
Piketty looks at centuries of data from all over the world and concludes that capitalism has
a long-run bias towards income concentration. Baker looks at 35 years of data in one country and
concludes that Piketty is wrong. Um...?
A little more generously, what Baker actually writes is:
"The argument on rents is important because, if correct, it means that there is nothing intrinsic
to capitalism that led to **this** rapid rise in inequality, as for example argued by Thomas Piketty."
(emphasis added)
But Piketty has always been very explicit that the recent rise in US income inequality is anomalous
-- driven primarily by rising inequality in the distribution of labor income, and only secondarily
by any shift from labor to capital income.
So perhaps Baker is "correctly" refuting Straw Thomas Piketty. Which I suppose is better than
just being obviously wrong. Maybe.
tew said...
Some simple math shows that this assertion is false "As a result of this upward redistribution,
most workers have seen little improvement in living standards" unless you think an apprx. 60%
in per-capita real income (expressed as GDP) among the 99% is "little improvement".
Real GDP 2015 / Real GDP 1980 = 2.57 (Source: FRED)
If the income share of the 1% shifted from 10% to 20% then The 1%' real GDP component went up
410% while that of The 99% went up 130%. Accounting for a population increase of about 41% brings
those numbers to a 265% increase and a 62% increase.
Certainly a very unequal distribution of the productivity gains but hard to call "little".
I believe the truth of the statement is revealed when you look at the Top 5% vs. the other
95%.
cm said in reply to tew...
For most "working people", their raises are quickly eaten up by increases in housing/rental,
food, local services, and other nondiscretionary costs. Sure, you can buy more and better imported
consumer electronics per dollar, but you have to pay the rent/mortgage every months, how often
do you buy a new flat screen TV? In a high-cost metro, a big ass TV will easily cost less than
a single monthly rent (and probably less than your annual cable bill that you need to actually
watch TV).
pgl said in reply to tew...
Are you trying to be the champion of the 1%? Sorry dude but Greg Mankiw beat you to this.
anne said...
In the years since 1980, there has been a well-documented upward redistribution of income.
While there are some differences by methodology and the precise years chosen, the top one percent
of households have seen their income share roughly double from 10 percent in 1980 to 20 percent
in the second decade of the 21st century. As a result of this upward redistribution, most workers
have seen little improvement in living standards from the productivity gains over this period....
Between 1948 and 1980, real median family income increased by 110.2%, while between 1980 and 2014
real median family income increased by a mere 15.8%.
cm said...
"protectionist measures that have boosted the pay of doctors and other highly educated
professionals"
Protectionist measures (largely of the variety that foreign credentials are not recognized)
apply to doctors and similar accredited occupations considered to be of some importance, but certainly
much less so to "highly educated professionals" in tech, where the protectionism is limited to
annual quotas for some categories of new workers imported into the country and requiring companies
to pay above a certain wage rate for work visa holders in jobs claimed to have high skills requirements.
A little mentioned but significant factor for growing wages in "highly skilled" jobs is that
the level of foundational and generic domain skills is a necessity, but is not all the value the
individual brings to the company. In complex subject matters, even the most competent person
joining a company has to become familiar with the details of the products, the industry niche,
the processes and professional/personal relationships in the company or industry, etc. All these
are not really teachable and require between months and years in the job. This represents a significant
sunk cost. Sometimes (actually rather often) experience within the niche/industry is in a degree
portable between companies, but some company still had to employ enough people to build this experience,
and it cannot be readily bought by bringing in however competent freshers.
This applies less so e.g. in medicine. There are of course many heavily specialized disciplines,
but a top flight brain or internal organ surgeon can essentially work on any person. The variation
in the subject matter is large and complex, but much more static than in technology.
That's not to knock down the skill of medical staff in any way (or anybody else who does a
job that is not trivial, and that's true for many jobs). But specialization vs. genericity follow
a different pattern than in tech.
Another example, the legal profession. There are similar principles that carry across, with
a lot of the specialization happening along different legislation, case law, etc., specific to
the jurisdiction and/or domain being litigated.
Oil is a valuable chemical resource that is now wasted because of low prices... "The obvious follow-up
question is, how long will the sane people of the world continue to allow so much fossil-fuel combustion
to continue? An exercise for readers."
Notable quotes:
"... Iran wont flood the market in 2016. Right now Iran is losing production. It takes time to reverse decline and make a difference. ..."
"... Those who predict very low prices dont understand the industry (I do). The low price environment reduces capital investment, which has to be there just to keep production flat (the decline is 3 to 5 million barrels of oil per day per year). At this time capacity is dropping everywhere except for a few select countries. The USA is losing capacity, and will never again reach this years peak unless prices double. Other countries are hopeless. From Norway to Indonesia to Colombia to Nigeria and Azerbaijan, peak oil has already taken place. ..."
"... If oil prices remain very low until 2025 itll either be because you are right or because the world went to hell. ..."
"... But Im with Carambaman - prices will go up again. Demand is and will still be there. The excess output will eventually end, and the prices stabilises. And then move up again. ..."
"... Time to examine the real question: how long can the Saudis maintain their current production rates? Theyre currently producing more than 10 Mbarrels/day, but lets take the latter figure as a lower bound. They apparently have (per US consulate via WikiLeaks--time for a followup?) at least 260 Gbarrels (though it seems no one outside Saudi really knows). You do the math: 260 Gbarrels / (10 Mbarrels/day) = 26 kdays ~= 70 years. @ 15 Mbarrels/day - 47.5 years. @ 20 Mbarrels/day - 35 years. ..."
"... The obvious follow-up question is, how long will the sane people of the world continue to allow so much fossil-fuel combustion to continue? An exercise for readers. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia, a US ally, using oil production and pricing to crush US oil shale industry? Did I read that correctly? ..."
"... Yeah, but I suspect it was *written* incorrectly. Im betting the Saudis real target is the Russians. ..."
"... In 1975 dollars, thats $8.31 / bbl (with a cumulative inflation factor of 342% over 40 years), or $.45 / gal for gas (assuming a current price of $2.00 / gal). ..."
"... I spent 30 years in the oil industry and experienced many cycles. When it is up people cannot believe it will go down and when it is down people cannot believe it will go up. It is all a matter of time ..."
Iran won't flood the market in 2016. Right now Iran is losing production. It takes time
to reverse decline and make a difference.
Those who predict very low prices don't understand the industry (I do). The low price environment
reduces capital investment, which has to be there just to keep production flat (the decline is
3 to 5 million barrels of oil per day per year). At this time capacity is dropping everywhere
except for a few select countries. The USA is losing capacity, and will never again reach this
year's peak unless prices double. Other countries are hopeless. From Norway to Indonesia to Colombia
to Nigeria and Azerbaijan, peak oil has already taken place.
Fernando Leza -> SonOfFredTheBadman 15 Dec 2015 06:05
If oil prices remain very low until 2025 it'll either be because you are right or because
the world went to hell. I prefer your vision, of course. But I'm afraid most of your talk
is wishful thinking. Those of us who do know how to put watts on the table can't figure out any
viable solutions. Hopefully something like cheap fusion power will rise. Otherwise you may be
eating human flesh in 2060.
Fernando Leza -> p26677 15 Dec 2015 06:00
Keep assuming. I'll keep buying Shell stock.
MatCendana -> UnevenSurface 14 Dec 2015 03:36
Regardless of the breakeven price, producers with the wells already running or about to will
keep pumping. Better to have some income, even if the operation is at a loss, than no income.
This will go on and on right until the end, which is either prices eventually go up or they run
out of oil and can't drill new wells.
But I'm with Carambaman - prices will go up again. Demand is and will still be there. The
excess output will eventually end, and the prices stabilises. And then move up again.
Billy Carnes 13 Dec 2015 19:52
Also this hurts the states...Louisiana is now in the hole over 1.5 Billion or more
TomRoche 13 Dec 2015 12:31
@Guardian: Time to examine the real question: how long can the Saudis maintain their current
production rates? They're currently producing more than 10 Mbarrels/day, but let's take the latter
figure as a lower bound. They apparently have (per US consulate via WikiLeaks--time for a followup?)
at least 260 Gbarrels (though it seems no one outside Saudi really knows). You do the math: 260
Gbarrels / (10 Mbarrels/day) = 26 kdays ~= 70 years. @ 15 Mbarrels/day -> 47.5 years. @ 20 Mbarrels/day
-> 35 years.
That's just Saudi (allegedly) proven reserves. But it's plenty long enough to push atmospheric
GHG levels, and associated radiative forcing, to ridiculously destructive excess.
The obvious follow-up question is, how long will the sane people of the world continue
to allow so much fossil-fuel combustion to continue? An exercise for readers.
TomRoche -> GueroElEnfermero 13 Dec 2015 12:14
@GueroElEnfermero: 'Saudi Arabia, a US ally, using oil production and pricing to crush
US oil shale industry? Did I read that correctly?'
Yeah, but I suspect it was *written* incorrectly. I'm betting the Saudis' real target is
the Russians.
Sieggy 13 Dec 2015 11:49
In 1975 dollars, that's $8.31 / bbl (with a cumulative inflation factor of 342% over 40
years), or $.45 / gal for gas (assuming a current price of $2.00 / gal).
Carambaman 13 Dec 2015 10:25
I spent 30 years in the oil industry and experienced many cycles. When it is up people
cannot believe it will go down and when it is down people cannot believe it will go up. It is
all a matter of time
Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Complaints of a Cover-Up
By NICHOLAS KULISH, CHRISTOPHER DREW and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
U.S. soldiers accused Afghan police and Navy SEALs of abusing detainees. But the SEAL command
opted against a court-martial and cleared its men of wrongdoing.
ilsm said in reply to anne...
Too much training to send to jail.
While E-4 Bergdahl does in captivity what several hundred officers did in Hanoi and gets life!
Still, two interesting-and vexing-issues for the technology industry, and for the politicians
who regulate it, emerged in the debate. The first came up in John Kasich's response to Trump's proposal.
"Wolf, there is a big problem-it's called encryption," he said. "We need to be able to penetrate
these people when they are involved in these plots and these plans. And we have to give the local
authorities the ability to penetrate, to disrupt. That's what we need to do. Encryption is a major
problem, and Congress has got to deal with this, and so does the President, to keep us safe."
The central question is whether American technology companies should offer the U.S. government,
whether the N.S.A. or the F.B.I., backdoor access to their devices or servers. The most important
companies here are Apple and Google, which, in the fall of 2014, began offering
strong encryption on the newer versions of Android and iOS phones. If you keep your passcode
secret, the government will be unable to, for instance, scroll through your contacts list, even if
it has a warrant. This has, naturally, made the government angry. The most thorough report on the
subject is
a position paper put out last month by Cyrus Vance, Jr., Manhattan's district attorney. In the
previous year, Vance wrote, his office had been "unable to execute approximately 111 search warrants
for smartphones because those devices were running iOS 8. The cases to which those devices related
include homicide, attempted murder, sexual abuse of a child, sex trafficking, assault, and robbery."
The solution isn't easy. Apple and Google implemented their new encryption standards after Edward
Snowden
revealed how the government had compromised their systems. They want to protect their customers-a
government back door could become a hacker's back door, too-and they also want to protect their business
models. If the N.S.A. can comb through iPhones, how many do you think Apple will be able to sell
in China? In the debate, Carly Fiorina bragged about how, when she ran Hewlett-Packard, she stopped
a truckload of equipment and had it "escorted into N.S.A. headquarters." Does that make you more
or less eager to buy an OfficeJet Pro?
The second hard issue that came up indirectly in the debate-and, more specifically,
in recent comments by Hillary Clinton-is how aggressive American companies such as Facebook,
Twitter, and Google (with YouTube) should be in combatting the use of their platforms by ISIS.
Again, there's no simple answer. You can't ban, say, everyone who tweets the hashtag #ISIS, because
then you'd have to
ban this guy. The algorithms are difficult to write, and the issues are difficult to balance.
Companies have to consider their business interests, their legal obligations to and cultural affinities
for free speech, and their moral obligations to oppose an organization that seeks to destroy the
country in which they were built-and also
kill their C.E.O.s.
MOSCOW - Russia and the US agree on a general approach to settling the Syrian crisis, President
Vladimir Putin said Thursday, saying that Moscow stands ready to improve ties with Washington.
Putin also said that Russia will continue its air campaign in Syria until a political process
starts, and lashed out at Turkey for trying to ''lick the Americans in some of their private
parts'' by downing a Russian warplane. ...
Commenting on relations with Washington, Putin said that Russia supports a US-drafted U.N.
Security Council resolution on settling the Syrian crisis, presented by US Secretary of State
John Kerry during his visit to Moscow earlier this week.
''In general, we like it,'' Putin said. ''I believe that the Syrian authorities should be
OK with it too, although they may not like something in it.''
He added that ''concessions must be made by both sides'' to end the conflict that has killed
more than 250,000 and turned millions into refugees since 2011.
He said the Russian approach, ''strangely as it may seem, coincides with the US vision:
joint work on a constitution, creation of instruments of control over future early elections,
holding the vote and recognizing its results on the basis of that political process.''
''We will help settle this crisis in every possible way,'' Putin said. At the same time,
he reaffirmed Russia's stance on the key issue that divided Russia and the West, the fate of
Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying the Syrians themselves must determine who rules them.
...
Already on his way out of the hall, he was asked about US presidential candidate Donald
Trump and praised him as a ''very bright and talented man,'' adding that he welcomes the Republican's
pledges to establish closer ties with Russia. ...
Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Complaints of a Cover-Up
By NICHOLAS KULISH, CHRISTOPHER DREW and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
U.S. soldiers accused Afghan police and Navy SEALs of abusing detainees. But the SEAL command
opted against a court-martial and cleared its men of wrongdoing.
ilsm said in reply to anne...
Too much training to send to jail.
While E-4 Bergdahl does in captivity what several hundred officers did in Hanoi and gets life!
"... It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not Vladimir Putin, who pushed the EU agreement and miscalculated the consequences, as the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has reported . Putin's only role in that time frame was to offer a more generous $15 billion aid package to Ukraine, not exactly a war-like act. ..."
The actually "incontrovertible" facts about the Ukraine crisis are these: The destabilization
of President Viktor Yanukovych's elected government began in November 2013 when Yanukovych balked
at a proposed association agreement promoted by the European Union. He sought more time after the
sticker shock of learning from Kiev economic experts that the deal would cost Ukraine $160 billion
in lost revenue by cutting trade with Russia.
It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not Vladimir Putin, who pushed the EU agreement and miscalculated
the consequences, as the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel
has reported. Putin's only role in that time frame was to offer a more generous $15 billion aid
package to Ukraine, not exactly a war-like act.
Yanukovych's decision to postpone action on the EU association prompted angry demonstrations in
Kiev's Maidan square, largely from western Ukrainians who were hoping for visa-free travel to the
EU and other benefits from closer ties. Putin had no role in those protests – and it's insane to
think that he did.
In February 2014, the protests grew more and more violent as neo-Nazi and other militias organized
in the western city of Lviv and these 100-man units known as "sotins" were dispatched daily to
provide the muscle for the anti-Yanukovych
uprising that was taking shape. It is frankly nutty to suggest that Putin was organizing these militias.
[See Consortiumnews.com's "When
Is a Putsch a Putsch."]
Evidence of Coup Plotting
By contrast, there is substantial evidence that senior U.S. officials were pushing for a "regime
change" in Kiev, including
an intercepted phone call
and various public statements.
In December 2013, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a neocon holdover, reminded Ukrainian
business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European aspirations."
In early February, she discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who the new leaders of Ukraine
should be. "Yats is the guy," she declared, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk. [See Consortiumnews.com's
"Who's
Telling the Big Lie on Ukraine?"]
The Maidan uprising gained momentum on Feb. 20, 2014, when snipers around the square opened fire
on police and protesters touching off a violent clash that left scores of people dead, both police
and protesters. After the sniper fire and a police retreat - carrying their wounded - the demonstrators
surged forward and some police apparently reacted with return fire of their own.
But the growing evidence indicates that the initial sniper fire originated from locations controlled
by the Right Sektor, extremists associated with the Maidan's neo-Nazi "self-defense" commandant Andriy
Parubiy. Though the current Ukrainian government has dragged its feet on an investigation, independent
field reports, including a
new one from BBC, indicate that the snipers were associated with the protesters, not the Yanukovych
government as was widely reported in the U.S. media a year ago.
The worsening violence led Yanukovych to agree on Feb. 21 to a deal guaranteed by three European
countries. He accepted reduced powers and agreed to early elections so he could be voted out of office.
Yet, rather than permit that political settlement to go forward, neo-Nazis and other Maidan forces
overran government buildings on Feb. 22, forcing Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives.
The U.S. State Department quickly deemed this coup regime "legitimate" and Nuland's choice, Yatsenyuk,
emerged as Prime Minister, with Parubiy put in charge of national security.
In other words, there is plenty of evidence that the Ukraine crisis was started by the EU through
its mishandling of the association agreement, then was heated up by the U.S. government through the
work of Nuland, Pyatt and other officials, and then was brought to a boil by neo-Nazis and other
extremists who executed the coup.
Is Angela Merkel getting bad advice from Washington neocons through their representative in Berlin?
Now we read that
Jeff Gedmin - the head of the Aspen
Institute in Berlin - is meeting on a regular basis with the Chancellor to instruct her on the Bush
administration's line:
Angela Merkel relies on the advice of Jeffrey Gedmin, specially dispatched
to Berlin to assist her by the Bush clan. This lobbyist first worked at the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI) [2]
under Richard Perle and Mrs. Dick Cheney. He enthusiastically encouraged the creation of a Euro
with Dollar parity exchange rate. Within the AEI, he led the New Atlantic Initiative (NAI), which
brought together all the America-friendly generals and politicians in Europe. He was then involved
in the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and wrote the chapter on Europe in the neocon
programme. He argued that the European Union should remain under NATO authority and that this
would only be possible by "discouraging European calls for emancipation." [3]
Finally he became the administrator of the Council of the Community of Democracies (CCD), which
argues in favour of a two-speed UN, and became director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin [4].
Subsequently he turned down the offer from his friend John Bolton [5]
of the post of deputy US ambassador to the UN so as to be able to devote himself exclusively to
Angela Merkel.
Elsewhere we
read that Chancellor Merkel receives daily briefings from the neocon stalwart Gedmin:
Gedmin "brieft" die Kanzlerin täglich: Er hat damit die Rolle inne, die bei
der Stasi die Führungsoffiziere hatten. Wenn wir uns noch Demokratie nennen wollen, dann muss
Merkel gezwungen werden, die Inhalte dieser täglichen "Briefings" dem Land offenzulegen. In anderen
Ländern gibt es dafür Gesetze, die "Freedom of Information Act" heissen.
Could this be true? I hope not. Gedmin is known for his columns in the conservative daily
Die Welt where he reports on the marvelous successes the Iraq War. And who can forget
Gedmin's
column during last summer' s Israel/Lebanon War where he wrote about how Hezbollah fighters drank
the blood of their victims in Lebanon? If Angela Merkel is looking for good advice, there are
much
more honest and intelligent resources than Jeff Gedmin.
Note that the quality of translation from German of this article is low.
Notable quotes:
"... Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ..."
"... Bild and Die Welt ..."
"... In 2003, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder opposed the Anglo-American intervention in Ira q. Angela
Merkel then published a courageous article in the Washington Post ..."
"... As Stanley Payne, the famous American historian said about Spain (or any western democracy)
that now politicians are not elected but chosen by apparatus, agencies and visible hands of the markets
..."
"... Merkel is publicly supported by Friede Springer , widow of West German press baron, Axel Springer
, whos publishing conglomerate, the Springer Group secretly received around $7 million from the CIA
in the early 1950s. ..."
"... She is counseled by Jeffrey Gedmin. Gedmin is a regular columnist in Die Welt , a publication
of the Springer Group. After becoming administrator of the Council of the Community of Democracies and
director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin in 2001, Gedmin devoted himself exclusively to Merkel . Gedmin
was too involved in the infamous Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and wrote the chapter on
Europe in the neocon programme. He argued that the European Union should remain under NATO authority
and that this would only be possible by discouraging European calls for emancipation . ..."
"... In a few years, Merkel has destroyed European solidarity, annihilated the German nuclear power
plants (an old American obsession too), impoverished Germans and their once efficient Rheinisch and
solitary economy, backed the mad dog American diplomacy and created along with an irresponsible American
administration (irresponsible because America will never win this kind of conflict) a dangerous crisis
against Russia than can end on a war or a scandalous European partition. ..."
One must understand the reasons of
Angela
Merkel's behaviour. She obeys America and
her Israeli mentor ('Israel is Germany's raison d'être'???), she threatens and mistreats Europe;
she attacks Russia and now she builds a new sanitary cordon (like in 1919) in order to deconstruct
Eurasia and
reinforce American agenda in our unlucky continent. Now Merkel advocates for the rapid adoption
on the most infamous and perilous treaty of commerce in history, the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership).
Dr Roberts has recently explained the meaning of 'Fast Track' expression and a courageous Guardian,
last 27th may, has exposed the corruption of American Congress on this incredible yet
terrible matter.
Why is Merkel so pro-American and anti-European?
Let us explain with the data we know the reasons of such nihilist and erratic behaviour.
Angela Merkel is not from East Germany (east-Germans
are pro-Russian indeed, see lately the declaration of generals). She was born in Hamburg in
1954 (Federal Republic of Germany). Shortly after her birth, her family made the unusual
choice of moving to the East. Her father, a pastor in the Lutheran church, founded a
seminary in the German Democratic Republic and became director of a home for handicapped persons.
He enjoyed a privileged social status, making frequent trips to the West.
She became politically involved in the Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth), the state
organisation for young people. She rose within the organisation to the post of Secretary of the
Agitprop department, becoming one of the main experts in political communication in the communist
system. She enjoys selling her convictions.
In November 1989 The CIA attempted to take over by recruiting senior individuals. One month
later, Merkel changed sides and joined the Demokratischer Aufbruch (Democratic Revival), a movement
inspired by the West German Christian Democrat party. As we know from history, these political
parties in Europe are neither Christian nor democratic. They just serve American and business
agendas. In order to avoid a mass exodus from the East to the West, Merkel argued strongly in
favour of getting the GDR to join the market economy and the Deutschmark zone. Ultraliberal but
never popular in Germany, her thesis finally imposed itself in Germany, like that of Sarkozy,
her fellow neocon in France who definitely ousted any rest of Gaullism in this country.
Her second husband, Joachim Sauer, was recruited by the US Company Biosym Technology, spending
a year at San Diego at the laboratory of this Pentagon contractor. He then joined Accelrys, another
San Diego company carrying out contracts for the Pentagon. Of course Accelrys is traded on NASDAQ...
Helmut Kohl and his closest associates had apparently accepted money from obscure sources
for the CDU. Angela Merkel then published a heroic-comical article in the Foreign Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung in which she distanced herself from her mentor. One can check that she
repeatedly betrays her protectors... and electors (whose median age is of sixty).
Angela Merkel was then publicly supported by two press groups. Firstly, she was able to count
on the support of Friede Springer, who had inherited the Axel Springer group (180 newspapers and
magazines, including Bild and Die Welt). The group's journalists are required to sign an
editorial agreement which lies down that they must work towards developing transatlantic links and
defending the state of Israel. The other group is Bertelsmann.
Angela Merkel radically rejects European independence
In 2003,
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder opposed the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq. Angela
Merkel then published a 'courageous' article in the Washington Post in which she rejected
the Chirac-Schröder doctrine of European independence, affirmed her gratitude and friendship for
"America" and supported this scandalous and ridiculous war. I quote some lines of this interesting
act of submission to her American lords:
Because of decisive events,
Europe and the United States now must redefine the nucleus of their domestic, foreign and
security policy principles.
Aid to Turkey, our partner in the alliance, is blocked for days in the NATO Council by France,
Belgium and Germany, a situation that undermines the very basis of NATO's legitimacy.
The Eastern European candidate countries for membership in the European Union were attacked
by the French government because they have declared their commitment to the transatlantic partnership
between Europe and the United States. She then threatens France, then a free country run
by Chirac and Villepin, and advocates for what Gore Vidal quoted 'the perpetual war'...
involving a 'perpetual peace':
Anyone who rejects military action as a last resort weakens the pressure that needs to be maintained
on dictators and consequently makes a war not less but more likely.
Germany needs its friendship with France, but the benefits of that friendship can be
realized only in close association with our old and new European partners, and within
the transatlantic alliance with the United States.
Yet Merkel won the elections in 2007. She announced the abolition of graduated income tax, proposing
that the rate should be the same for those who only just have what is necessary and those who live
in luxury: maybe this is the a result of her Christian education?
The outgoing Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, severely criticized this proposal in a televised debate.
The CDU's lead was decimated, and in the actual election, the CDU polled 35% of the votes and the
SPD 34%, the remainder being spread amongst a number of small parties. The Germans didn't want Schröder
any longer, but nor did they want Merkel. I repeat that she was imposed more than elected. As
Stanley Payne, the famous American historian said about Spain (or any western democracy) that now
politicians are 'not elected but chosen' by apparatus, agencies and 'visible hands' of the markets
These last weeks, "Mother" Merkel tries to re-launch the proposed merger of the North American
Free Trade Area and the European Free Trade Area, thereby creating a "great transatlantic market"
to use the words once pronounced by Sir Leon Brittan, a famous paedophile involved in scandals and
bribes since, and mysteriously found dead a couple of months ago.
Let us se now some of their connections:
Merkel is publicly supported by
Friede Springer, widow of West German press baron,
Axel Springer, who's publishing conglomerate, the
Springer Group secretly received around $7 million from the
CIA in the early 1950's.
She is counseled by Jeffrey Gedmin. Gedmin is a regular columnist in
Die Welt, a publication of the Springer Group. After becoming administrator of the
Council of the Community of Democracies and director of the
Aspen Institute in Berlin in 2001, Gedmin devoted himself exclusively to
Merkel. Gedmin was
too involved in the infamous Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and wrote the chapter on
Europe in the neocon programme. He argued that the European Union should remain under NATO authority
and that this would only be possible by "discouraging European calls for emancipation".
We have never been so far from 'emancipation' now in Europe, and never been so
near to a war with Russia and maybe (in order to satisfy American gruesome appetite) with Central
Asia and China. In France, 61% of the people who had witnessed the war asserted in 1945 that we were
saved by the Russian Army. Now, thanks to American propaganda backed by European collaborators, we
are hardly 10% to know that fact. The rest is misled by propaganda, media, TV and films. Daniel Estulin
speaks of a remade, of a re-fabricated past by US television and media agencies.
In a few years, Merkel has destroyed European solidarity, annihilated the German nuclear power
plants (an old American obsession too), impoverished Germans and their once efficient Rheinisch and
solitary economy, backed the 'mad dog' American diplomacy and created along with an irresponsible
American administration (irresponsible because America will never win this kind of conflict) a dangerous
crisis against Russia than can end on a war or a scandalous European partition.
"... The Official Story of the sarin attack – as presented by Secretary of State John Kerry, Human Rights Watch and other "respectable" sources – firmly laid the blame for the Aug. 21, 2013 atrocity killing hundreds of civilians outside Damascus on Assad. That became a powerful "group think" across Official Washington. ..."
To make the story even more compelling, an opposition leader braves the wrath of the autocrat
by seeking to expose these intelligence schemes, including the cover-up of key evidence. The autocrat's
government then seeks to prosecute the critic for "treason."
But the problem with this story, as far as the American government and press are concerned, is that
the autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is in charge of Turkey, a NATO ally and his
hated neighbor is the much demonized Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Major U.S. news outlets and
political leaders also bought into the sarin deception and simply can't afford to admit that they
once again misled the American people on a matter of war.
The Official Story of the sarin attack – as presented by Secretary of State John Kerry, Human
Rights Watch and other "respectable" sources – firmly laid the blame for the Aug. 21, 2013 atrocity
killing hundreds of civilians outside Damascus on Assad. That became a powerful "group think" across
Official Washington.
Though a few independent media outlets, including Consortiumnews.com, challenged the rush to judgment
and noted the lack of evidence regarding Assad's guilt, those doubts were brushed aside. (In an article
on Aug. 30, 2013, I described the administration's "Government Assessment" blaming Assad as a "dodgy
dossier," which offered not a single piece of verifiable proof.)
However, as with the "certainty" about Iraq's WMD a decade earlier, Every Important Person shared
the Assad-did-it "group think." That meant - as far as Official Washington was concerned - that Assad
had crossed President Barack Obama's "red line" against using chemical weapons. A massive U.S. retaliatory
bombing strike was considered just days away.
... ... ...
But the "group think" was resistant to all empirical evidence. It was so powerful that even when
the Turkish plot was uncovered by legendary investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh, his usual publication,
The New Yorker, refused to print it. Rebuffed in the United States – the land of freedom of the press
– Hersh had to take the story to the London Review of Books to get it out in April 2014. [See Consortiumnews.com's
"Was
Turkey Behind Syria Sarin Attack?"]
... ... ...
In statements before parliament and to journalists, Erdem cited a derailed indictment
that was begun by the General Prosecutor's Office in the southern Turkish city of Adana, with the
criminal case number 2013/120.
Erdem said the prosecutor's office, using technical surveillance, discovered that an Al Qaeda
jihadist named Hayyam Kasap acquired the sarin.
At the press conference, Erdem
said, "Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific
addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing
the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen
individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting
government claims that it is fighting terrorism."
Erdem said the released operatives were allowed to cross the border into Syria and the criminal
investigation was halted.
Another CHP deputy, Ali Şeker, added that the Turkish government misled the public by claiming
Russia provided the sarin and that "Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a U.S. military
intervention in Syria."
Erdem's disclosures, which he repeated in a recent interview with RT, the Russian network,
prompted the Ankara Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation into Erdem for treason.
Erdem defended himself, saying the government's actions regarding the sarin case besmirched Turkey's
international reputation. He added that he also has been receiving death threats.
"The paramilitary organization Ottoman Hearths is sharing my address [on Twitter] and plans a
raid [on my house]. I am being targeted with death threats because I am patriotically opposed to
something that tramples on my country's prestige," Erdem
said.
"... "The chance for a durable Washington-Moscow strategic partnership was lost in the 1990 after the Soviet Union ended. Actually it began to be lost earlier, because it was [President Ronald] Reagan and [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev who gave us the opportunity for a strategic partnership between 1985-89. ..."
"... "And it certainly ended under the Clinton Administration, and it didn't end in Moscow. It ended in Washington - it was squandered and lost in Washington. And it was lost so badly that today, and for at least the last several years (and I would argue since the Georgian war in 2008), we have literally been in a new Cold War with Russia. ..."
"... "TODAY THERE ARE NO RED LINES. One of the things that Putin and his predecessor President Medvedev keep saying to Washington is: You are crossing our Red Lines! And Washington said, and continues to say, 'You don't have any red lines. We have red lines and we can have all the bases we want around your borders, but you can't have bases in Canada or Mexico. Your red lines don't exist.' This clearly illustrates that today there are no mutual rules of conduct. ..."
"... "Another important point: Today there is absolutely no organized anti-Cold War or Pro-Detente political force or movement in the United States at all –– not in our political parties, not in the White House, not in the State Department, not in the mainstream media, not in the universities or the think tanks. … None of this exists today. … ..."
"... In practice, President Assad's imposed ouster precisely will empower ISIS, rather than implode it, and the consequences will ripple across the Middle East – and beyond. ..."
"... Indeed, ISIS and the other Caliphate forces have very clear human motivations and clearly articulated political objectives, and none of these is in any way consistent with the type of Syrian State that America says it wants for Syria. This precisely reflects the danger of becoming hostage to a certain narrative, rather than being willing to examine the prevailing conceptual framework more critically. ..."
"... unfortunately, today's reports seem to indicate that the White House and State Department are thinking primarily how to counter Russia's actions in Syria. They are worried, it was reported, that Russia is diminishing America's leadership in the world. ..."
"... Washington's disinclination to permit Russia any enhancement to its standing in Europe, or in the non-West, through its initiative strategically to defeat Wahhabist jihadism in Syria, is not only to play with fire in the Middle East. It is playing with a fire of even greater danger: to do both at the same time seems extraordinarily reckless. ..."
"... As Europe becomes accomplice in raising the various pressures on Russia in Syria – economically through sanctions and other financial measures , in Ukraine and Crimea, and in beckoning Montenegro, Georgia and the Baltic towards NATO – we should perhaps contemplate the paradox that Russia's determination to try to avoid war is leading to war. ..."
"... Russia's call to co-operate with Western states against the scourge of ISIS; its low-key and carefully crafted responses to such provocations as the ambush of its SU-24 bomber in Syria; and President Putin's calm rhetoric, are all being used by Washington and London to paint Russia as a "paper tiger," whom no one needs fear. ..."
"... In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the "benevolent" hegemon, or to prepare for war. ..."
Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin
for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia's genuine national interests,
its "red lines," and the risk that "tough-guy-ism" can lead to nuclear war, as Alastair Crooke explains.
We all know the narrative in which we (the West) are seized. It is the narrative of the Cold War:
America versus the "Evil Empire." And, as Professor Ira Chernus has
written, since
we are "human" and somehow they (the USSR or, now, ISIS) plainly are not, we must be their polar
opposite in every way.
"If they are absolute evil, we must be the absolute opposite. It's the old apocalyptic tale: God's
people versus Satan's. It ensures that we never have to admit to any meaningful connection with the
enemy." It is the basis to America's and Europe's claim to exceptionalism and leadership.
And "buried in the assumption that the enemy is not in any sense human like us, is [an] absolution
for whatever hand we may have had in sparking or contributing to evil's rise and spread. How could
we have fertilized the soil of absolute evil or bear any responsibility for its successes? It's a
basic postulate of wars against evil: God's people must be innocent," (and that the evil cannot be
mediated, for how can one mediate with evil).
Westerners may generally think ourselves to be rationalist and (mostly) secular, but Christian
modes of conceptualizing the world still permeate contemporary foreign policy.
It is this Cold War narrative of the Reagan era, with its correlates that America simply stared
down the Soviet Empire through military and – as importantly – financial "pressures," whilst making
no concessions to the enemy.
What is sometimes forgotten, is how the Bush neo-cons gave their "spin" to this narrative for
the Middle East by casting Arab national secularists and Ba'athists as the offspring of "Satan":
David Wurmser was advocating in 1996, "expediting the chaotic collapse" of secular-Arab nationalism
in general, and Baathism in particular. He concurred with King Hussein of Jordan that "the phenomenon
of Baathism" was, from
the very beginning, "an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy."
Moreover, apart from being agents of socialism, these states opposed Israel, too. So, on the principle
that if these were the enemy, then my enemy's enemy (the kings, Emirs and monarchs of the Middle
East) became the Bush neo-cons friends. And they remain such today – however much their interests
now diverge from those of the U.S.
The problem, as Professor Steve Cohen, the foremost Russia scholar in the U.S.,
laments, is that it is this narrative which has precluded America from ever concluding
any real ability to find a mutually acceptable modus vivendi with Russia – which it sorely
needs, if it is ever seriously to tackle the phenomenon of Wahhabist jihadism (or resolve the Syrian
conflict).
What is more, the "Cold War narrative" simply does not reflect history, but rather the narrative
effaces history: It looses for us the ability to really understand the demonized "calous
tyrant" – be it (Russian) President Vladimir Putin or (Ba'athist) President Bashar al-Assad – because
we simply ignore the actual history of how that state came to be what it is, and, our part in it
becoming what it is.
Indeed the state, or its leaders, often are not what we think they are – at all. Cohen
explains: "The chance for a durable Washington-Moscow strategic partnership was lost in
the 1990 after the Soviet Union ended. Actually it began to be lost earlier, because it was [President
Ronald] Reagan and [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev who gave us the opportunity for a strategic
partnership between 1985-89.
"And it certainly ended under the Clinton Administration, and it didn't end in Moscow. It ended
in Washington - it was squandered and lost in Washington. And it was lost so badly that today, and
for at least the last several years (and I would argue since the Georgian war in 2008), we have literally
been in a new Cold War with Russia.
"Many people in politics and in the media don't want to call it this, because if they admit, 'Yes,
we are in a Cold War,' they would have to explain what they were doing during the past 20 years.
So they instead say, 'No, it is not a Cold War.'
"Here is my next point. This new Cold War has all of the potential to be even more dangerous than
the preceding 40-year Cold War, for several reasons. First of all, think about it. The epicentre
of the earlier Cold War was in Berlin, not close to Russia. There was a vast buffer zone between
Russia and the West in Eastern Europe.
"Today, the epicentre is in Ukraine, literally on Russia's borders. It was the Ukrainian conflict
that set this off, and politically Ukraine remains a ticking time bomb. Today's confrontation is
not only on Russia's borders, but it's in the heart of Russian-Ukrainian 'Slavic civilization.' This
is a civil war as profound in some ways as was America's Civil War."
Cohen continued: "My next point: and still worse – You will remember that after the Cuban Missile
Crisis, Washington and Moscow developed certain rules-of-mutual conduct. They saw how dangerously
close they had come to a nuclear war, so they adopted "No-Nos,' whether they were encoded in treaties
or in unofficial understandings. Each side knew where the other's red line was. Both sides tripped
over them on occasion but immediately pulled back because there was a mutual understanding that there
were red lines.
"TODAY THERE ARE NO RED LINES. One of the things that Putin and his predecessor President Medvedev
keep saying to Washington is: You are crossing our Red Lines! And Washington said, and continues
to say, 'You don't have any red lines. We have red lines and we can have all the bases we want around
your borders, but you can't have bases in Canada or Mexico. Your red lines don't exist.' This
clearly illustrates that today there are no mutual rules of conduct.
"Another important point: Today there is absolutely no organized anti-Cold War or Pro-Detente
political force or movement in the United States at all –– not in our political parties, not in the
White House, not in the State Department, not in the mainstream media, not in the universities or
the think tanks. … None of this exists today. …
"My next point is a question: Who is responsible for this new Cold War? I don't ask this question
because I want to point a finger at anyone. The position of the current American political media
establishment is that this new Cold War is all Putin's fault – all of it, everything. We in America
didn't do anything wrong. At every stage, we were virtuous and wise and Putin was aggressive and
a bad man. And therefore, what's to rethink? Putin has to do all of the rethinking, not us."
These two narratives, the Cold War narrative, and the neocons' subsequent "spin" on it: i.e. Bill
Kristol's formulation (in 2002) that precisely because of its Cold War "victory," America could,
and must, become the "benevolent global hegemon," guaranteeing and sustaining the new American-authored
global order – an "omelette that cannot be made without breaking eggs" – converge and conflate in
Syria, in the persons of President Assad and President Putin.
President Obama is no neocon, but he is constrained by the global hegemon legacy, which he must
either sustain, or be labeled as the arch facilitator of America's decline. And the President is
also surrounded by R2P ("responsibility-to-protect") proselytizers, such as Samantha Power, who seem
to have convinced the President that "the tyrant" Assad's ouster would puncture and collapse the
Wahhabist jihadist balloon, allowing "moderate" jihadists such as Ahrar al-Sham to finish off the
deflated fragments of the punctured ISIS balloon.
In practice, President Assad's imposed ouster precisely will empower ISIS, rather than implode
it, and the consequences will ripple across the Middle East – and beyond. President Obama privately
may understand the nature and dangers of the
Wahhabist
cultural revolution, but seems to adhere to the conviction that everything will change if
only President Assad steps down. The Gulf States said the same about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
in Iraq. He has gone (for now), but what changed? ISIS got stronger.
Of course if we think of ISIS as evil, for evil's sake, bent on mindless, whimsical slaughter,
"what a foolish task it obviously [would be] to think about the enemy's actual motives. After all,
to do so would be to treat them as humans, with human purposes arising out of history. It would smack
of sympathy for the devil. Of course," Professor Chernus
continues, "this
means that, whatever we might think of their actions, we generally ignore a wealth of evidence that
the Islamic State's fighters couldn't be more human or have more comprehensible motivations."
Indeed, ISIS and the other Caliphate forces have very clear human motivations and clearly articulated
political objectives, and none of these is in any way consistent with the type of Syrian State that
America says it wants for Syria. This precisely reflects the danger of becoming hostage to a certain
narrative, rather than being willing to examine the prevailing conceptual framework more critically.
America lies far away from Syria and the Middle East, and as Professor Stephen Cohen notes, "unfortunately,
today's reports seem to indicate that the White House and State Department are thinking primarily
how to counter Russia's actions in Syria. They are worried, it was reported, that Russia is diminishing
America's leadership in the world."
It is a meme of perpetual national insecurity, of perpetual fears about America's standing
and of challenges to its standing, Professor Chernus
suggests.
But Europe is not "far away"; it lies on Syria's doorstep. It is also neighbor to Russia.
And in this connection, it is worth pondering Professor Cohen's last point: Washington's disinclination
to permit Russia any enhancement to its standing in Europe, or in the non-West, through its initiative
strategically to defeat Wahhabist jihadism in Syria, is not only to play with fire in the Middle
East. It is playing with a fire of even greater danger: to do both at the same time seems extraordinarily
reckless.
Cohen again:
"The false idea [has taken root] that the nuclear threat ended with the Soviet Union:
In fact, the threat became more diverse and difficult. This is something the political elite forgot.
It was another disservice of the Clinton Administration (and to a certain extent the first President
Bush in his re-election campaign) saying that the nuclear dangers of the preceding Cold War era no
longer existed after 1991. The reality is that the threat grew, whether by inattention or accident,
and is now more dangerous than ever."
As Europe becomes accomplice in raising the various pressures on Russia in Syria – economically
through sanctions and
other financial measures, in Ukraine and Crimea, and in beckoning Montenegro, Georgia
and the Baltic towards NATO – we should perhaps contemplate the paradox that Russia's determination
to try to avoid war is leading to war.
Russia's call to co-operate with Western states against the scourge of ISIS; its low-key and carefully
crafted responses to such provocations as the ambush of its SU-24 bomber in Syria; and President
Putin's calm rhetoric, are all being used by Washington and London to paint Russia as a "paper tiger,"
whom no one needs fear.
In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the "benevolent" hegemon,
or to prepare for war.
Alastair Crooke is a British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence
and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, which advocates
for engagement between political Islam and the West. [This article also appeared at the Conflicts
Forum's Web site and is
republished with permission.]
"... when the Big Banks were caught and convicted of conspiring to manipulate the $500 trillion, LIBOR debt market ..."
"... when the Big Banks were caught and convicted of conspiring to launder trillions for the global drug cartels and "terrorist" entities, despite the supposed "wars" the U.S. claims to be fighting against drugs and terrorism ..."
"... The Vampire Squid Firmly Attached To The Face Of Humanity ..."
"... As far as I can gather, the World Bank and the IMF are apart of the very same Cartel that own/control the Central Banks. ..."
Then we have the confessions of the criminals. A full one-quarter of Wall Street's and London's
senior banking executives
freely admit that crime is a way of life
in their industry -- organized crime. Even in our justice system (or what remains of it), once armed
with confessions, the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" no longer applies – the guilt is
conceded.
The Big Banks manipulate credit default swaps to perpetrate economic terrorism against other nations
in the world, where they literally destroy the economies of those victim-nations. It used to be a
theory, but now the proof is finally emerging. You heard it here first.
LawsofPhysics
So what? Has any of the bank management/leaders gone to prison and lost all their wealth?
"when the Big Banks were
caught and convicted of conspiring to manipulate the $500 trillion, LIBOR
debt market"
(Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc
agreed to plead guilty to felony charges of conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars
and euros)
"when the Big Banks were
caught and convicted of conspiring to launder trillions for the global drug
cartels and "terrorist" entities, despite the supposed "wars" the U.S. claims to be fighting against
drugs and terrorism"
(Wells Fargo and JPMorgan)
and of course, The Vampire Squid Firmly Attached To The Face Of Humanity,
Goldman Sachs, The Great Destroyer
commoncourtesy
Fancy-free please will you explain further.
As far as I can gather, the World Bank and the IMF are apart of the very same Cartel that
own/control the Central Banks. All are controlled by the BIS who is run/controlled by pretty
much all the same criminals on a merry-go-round. Throw in the Vatican, The Crown (BAR) Temple
- The City of London, Washington DC, the Rothschild's et al, puppet Governments (and their military)
on the same payroll and the world is pretty much screwed.
Who are the Board of Governors you are talking about?
Who is this coalition?
Please name names.
Can you vouch for their credibility or are they part of the corrupt cartel?
There is far TOO MUCH SECRECY going on.
If everything was more transparent, out of the shadows and open the world would not be in the
state is in today.
Closed dealings, complexity and behind the curtain negotiations promote corruption.
How can justice be served when most public jurors would not be able to understand the fraudulent
accounting practices being utilised?
What is the TRUTH?
andrewp111
A big load of bullshit. The US has its own currency and that currency is backed by military
power. Greece is a subordinate vassal state of the EU. There is no comparison between the two.
"... There is no "far left" in Europe any more. Since the Merkels, Hollandes, Blairs and Rasmussens of this world were planted in prominent positions because of their excruciatingly statusquo orientation, even the moderate "left" has practically ceased to exist. We now have rabid right or moderately rabid right to choose from, except for a few notable exceptions. ..."
"... Obama does not have a clue, he has lost the plot. He is backing Saudi Arabia who are the biggest instigators of terrorism in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is announcing a 34-state military alliance to fight terrorism. ..."
"... Seems to me that IS was created, either accidentally or deliberately, by the US and its success has gone beyond the US administrations worst nightmare? When the US refuses slam Turkey for it's recent shoot-down of the Russian plane, and do anything to support Iraq in getting rid of unwanted Turkish military near Mosul, within Iraq and near the IS capital, nor wanting to know about Turkish involvement supplying Sarin gas agents to IS, or stopping Turkey supplying food and arms to IS, and receiving stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil as payment, nor preventing Turkey from being the transit centre and R & R centre for IS recruits, then maybe its time to assume that IS is the deliberate brainchild of the US, and that Turkey is playing to the US tune and protection, for promises of territory in a future carve up of Iraq and or Syria. ..."
"... Seems that ISIL, ISIS, IS and Daesh are all names invented by the US to spread the narrative through the media. They all mean US proxy army to me. Just my opinion. ..."
"... Perhaps that is because ISIS doesn't actually occupy "territory" as such. As Mr. Knight says, they are an ideology, an idea. An idea, unfortunately in this case, doesn't live in houses in prescribed areas any more than Republicanism lives in Chicago. The way forward has to involve NOT creating another 10,000 new mortal enemies in the Middle East every day. Even if only twelve innocent people had died in Iraq in 2003, instead of the hundreds of thousands who actually did, one could understand very large groups of people related to the victims cursing the US for its irresponsible meddling. ..."
"... Incredibly ignorant of the president. The US lives in sin with the Saudis. As long as the Saudis keep importing Wahhabism out of their country to others, the problem will exist. ..."
"... We bombed the Taliban. We bombed Al Qaeda. Neither lead to anything more than establishing the rise of ISIS in the destabilised areas we had bombed. ..."
"... The biggest contribution America can make to getting rid of Isis is to "persuade" its friends and allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey mainly - to turn off the tap of finance, munitions and logistics to Isis, Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra) and its allies like Ahrar Al Sham. No American ground troops needed; they would be counter-productive. ..."
"... The secular Syrian government, with women in its ranks, is fighting for its life against a most ruthless and abominable enemy: fanatical jihadist mercenaries financed by an execrable mediaeval tyranny, Saudi Barbaria. This is the enemy of all we stand for, the enemy that perpetrated 9/11 and 7/7 and their latest clone that bombed Paris concert-goers and Russian holiday-makers. They are paid and trained by Riyadh. And armed to the teeth with modern American weapons, passed to them by the newest demagogue, Turkey's Erdoğan. ..."
"... The sworn enemy of all these head-chopping bigots is Assad's secular republic of Syria because it challenges the ideological dogmatism of Sharia Law. This law is as rigid as Hitler's Nazism or Stalin's communism. ..."
"... I wonder if because 'a few weeks' was finally taken to supposedly destroy this critical infrastructure - if the 'evasive' ISIL oil business - along with revenues - will suffer? I also wonder why the air campaign hasn't been extended to include the purchasers of ISIL's oil supplies - at sea and in their home countries. ..."
"... Isis must ultimately be defeated by Muslim forces, or we'll be manufacturing radical faster than we can kill them. ..."
"... The Muslims seem to be manufacturing radicals quickly enough without any help from us. ..."
"... What have they been doing for the last two years then? No attacks on ISIS trucks transporting oil, no sanctions on countries that have been buying that oil. We only get some action now that Russia has been attacking ISIS in Syria and of course there is minimal reporting of the successes of the Russians in Western media. As far as Libya is concerned, there are very ominous signs that ISIS is moving to set up headquarters in that country, a country a lot closer to Europe than Syria or Iraq are. There is also the problem that the Russians will not be involved in Libya, unlike Syria, they do not have a functioning government to ask them in. Libya is the nightmare created by NATO and the US, they will have to take full responsibility for their dreadful actions there and fight the barbarians they created, no sitting back and allowing them to flourish this time. ..."
"... What a farce, who does Obama think he's kidding? If the US was serious about ISIS it would have been finished off a year ago, now that Russia has called the US's bluff they now have to pretend to step up to the plate. Pathetic. ..."
"... More drivel from the counterfeit president. His allies in the middle east are disgusting butchers. Take Turkey: it is a great shame for Turkey that 32 journalists are imprisoned in the 21st century. Some were arrested on Nov. 26 after being charged in May with espionage, revealing confidential documents and membership in a terrorist organization. The charges are related to a report published by a leading newspaper claiming weapons-loaded trucks that were discovered in January 2014 en route to Syria actually belonged to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and had been sent to provide support to rebel groups. ..."
Talk big but no action. Hot air. Everybody knows now.
After the Syria red line fiasco, the whole world knows US president makes empty promises.
In the next TV broadcast, he will give excuses why he cannot do it. Then he will repeat "No
Boots On The Ground". Then the US president will blame Congress for not giving him permission
to do the most basic things.
...
Now in end-2015 Obama has only ONE thing on his mind.
He wants to preserve the legacy of his presidency.
He does not want to do anything to risk the presidency being blamed.
He does not want to take any mis-step.
It is a Zero Risk environment in the White House now.
He dares not even reveal the truth on what country's air space the SU-24 was flying in, when
it was shot down.
It will just be TALK from now on until the next president takes over in 2016.
wardropper -> LupusCanis 14 Dec 2015 22:21
There is no "far left" in Europe any more. Since the Merkels, Hollandes, Blairs and
Rasmussens of this world were planted in prominent positions because of their excruciatingly
statusquo orientation, even the moderate "left" has practically ceased to exist. We now have
rabid right or moderately rabid right to choose from, except for a few notable exceptions.
GerdT 14 Dec 2015 22:21
Looking out the window I can see the hills that mark the border to Cambodia and not far
away Vietnam. I still remember the speeches given during the Vietnam War and how close victory
was. The bombs dropped on these countries including North Vietnam during the war exceeded what
was dropped during WWII in the Atlantic/European and the Pacific theater of war. Still, it was
a US helicopter that left from the American Embassy in Saigon that concluded that war, with
the US going home and into denial about the outcome of that war.
The apocalypse foreseen by the prophets of doomsday painting a picture of an Asian
continent that would turn into a communist infested threat to human kind didn't happen.
I have been recently in Vietnam and Cambodia and seen that people get on with their lives
and economies that try to improve for the coming ASEAN community. Without help from western
countries they have started to rebuild what was left of their countries after the champion of
democracy had left. As the peanut farmer and former President Jimmy Carter said, the
destruction was mutual and hence Vietnam didn't deserve any compensation for the unbelievable
collateral damage caused by US intervention in this country. If the US was really trying to
protect democracy or as Bill Clinton described it protecting National Security, which he
defined as US business interests and given the US a right to interfere in any country that
tries to threaten them, is a debatable point.
During the following decades the US again would raise terror and war in countries to ensure
that the branding of democracy they preferred would be exported. South Vietnam hadn't been a
democracy when the US decided to send troops across and the political leaders of that country
came from the military, granting themselves the titles of president and minister, but holding
the country in the same grip as in the North the communist did. From South America to the
Middle East the US supported groups and leaders that were favorable to US business interests.
The Taliban were a useful tool to drive out the Soviet Union only to become a haven for Bin
Laden and his followers. Iraq has turned into a political and humanitarian nightmare and ISIL
that was as a startup supplied with weapons and training by the US to drive out Assad from
Syria is now the greatest threat to world peace according to the US.
We only have to take a look at the close friends and allies of the US in the Middle East
and South America to understand how they spell democracy and human rights. Maybe it is time to
listen to the millions of people with families that want to live in peace and are tired of
foreign interference in their countries. Instead of supplying arms and support to people that
favor the western or eastern political view, we should start to invest and rebuild these
countries to ensure they can become equal and respected partners within the global community.
Phil Atkinson 14 Dec 2015 22:18
What a joke! Ashton Carter to visit the Middle East to jockey along the Arab states - the
same people that the USA supplies weapons to, that end up with terrorists. Or Turkey, that
erstwhile NATO member which has been stealing Syrian oil and selling it to Israel and speaking
of Israel, that country still illegally occupying the Golan Heights in Syria and aiding and
abetting Al-Nusra Front fighters and bombing inside Syria.
Ashton Carter is a dangerous fool, who believes his own government's propaganda. He should be
kept at home.
SomersetApples 14 Dec 2015 22:08
Obama does not have a clue, he has lost the plot. He is backing Saudi Arabia who are
the biggest instigators of terrorism in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is announcing a 34-state
military alliance to fight terrorism.
Informed17 14 Dec 2015 22:08
If ISIS does not do what Obama says, US-led coalition of 60+ countries will destroy another
pair of Islamist excavators. I am sure ISIS leaders are scared shitless.
RocketSurgeon 14 Dec 2015 22:03
Seems to me that IS was created, either accidentally or deliberately, by the US and its
success has gone beyond the US administrations worst nightmare?
When the US refuses slam Turkey for it's recent shoot-down of the Russian plane, and do
anything to support Iraq in getting rid of unwanted Turkish military near Mosul, within Iraq
and near the IS capital, nor wanting to know about Turkish involvement supplying Sarin gas
agents to IS, or stopping Turkey supplying food and arms to IS, and receiving stolen Syrian
and Iraqi oil as payment, nor preventing Turkey from being the transit centre and R & R centre
for IS recruits, then maybe its time to assume that IS is the deliberate brainchild of the US,
and that Turkey is playing to the US tune and protection, for promises of territory in a
future carve up of Iraq and or Syria.
Seems that ISIL, ISIS, IS and Daesh are all names invented by the US to spread the
narrative through the media. They all mean US proxy army to me.
Just my opinion.
readerofgrauniad -> Stephen_Sean 14 Dec 2015 22:01
But who are the good boys in this? To end the war, Asad is probably the best option, and
compared to IS he looks like a saint.
wardropper -> Lech1980 14 Dec 2015 21:59
Perhaps that is because ISIS doesn't actually occupy "territory" as such. As Mr. Knight
says, they are an ideology, an idea. An idea, unfortunately in this case, doesn't live in
houses in prescribed areas any more than Republicanism lives in Chicago. The way forward has
to involve NOT creating another 10,000 new mortal enemies in the Middle East every day. Even
if only twelve innocent people had died in Iraq in 2003, instead of the hundreds of thousands
who actually did, one could understand very large groups of people related to the victims
cursing the US for its irresponsible meddling. I would imagine our enemies over there
number about 50 million by now, and nobody in human history has been able to survive having
that many enemies...
Thomas Hancock 14 Dec 2015 21:55
Incredibly ignorant of the president. The US lives in sin with the Saudis. As long as
the Saudis keep importing Wahhabism out of their country to others, the problem will exist.
The thing you learn from history is that no one learns anything from history. Maybe
someone can get a time machine and go back to kill Ho Chi Minh, and Vietnam will be a
capitalist paradise. This is the same strategy that helped create ISIS in the first place.
Bernard Knight 14 Dec 2015 21:55
We bombed the Taliban. We bombed Al Qaeda. Neither lead to anything more than
establishing the rise of ISIS in the destabilised areas we had bombed. What is the point?
1ClearSense -> Stephen_Sean 14 Dec 2015 21:48
Is that right? You mean when they hit 1050 oil tanker trucks, that's nothing? US followed
up hitting 300. They stopped oil revenues for ISIS, and reduced their revenues by 50 %. The
number of sorties they have run on ISIS has been considerably more than US. They have also hit
other terrorists to secure the rear, so Syrian troops can move on ISIS. You guys are
brainwashed.
Budovski Ximples -> AaronClausen 14 Dec 2015 21:42
"the US has killed 23,000 ISIL members in airstrikes"
Who told you? Disney Channel? Anyone can lie to you as long as you are behind a TV screen.
It's quite an easy task (having sufficient intelligence resources and money of course)... It's
incredibly obvious it would be sufficient hitting the financing of those mercenaries or not to
buy the oil they are selling. You know all that "intelligence resources, analysts, linguists,
SIGINT experts...". If only the US government wanted really. And yet what is ISIS? Quite a
volatile entity... looks like franchising terror... IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh will "desappear" when
it won't be useful anymore. And they will only find a new name whenever a new proxy ground
army should be required.
"Kremlinbot"? The cold war revamping has seduced you. Let me rimand you this facts:
In 2014 the USA has spent in its military expenditure more than 600 Bn $.
Russia is around 80.
It's been estimated that after WWII the USA caused the death of about 30 million people
all over the planet (challenging Stalin scores).
You'll find the facts... Not on Disnet Channel though.
After the dissolution of USSR it was clear that it was not "the enemy" anymore. Yet the
Ministry of Defence (and its industry) need powerful and fearsome enemies!
Et voilà, despite what the Ministry fo Truth says, after 20 years of tranquillity it's Russia
getting sourranded by military bases along its borders, losing Ukraine (and possibly its
strategic Crimea) and now directly challenged in Syria (where they have military bases).
Doesn't Russia have the right to "defend" itself and have allies? They have a Ministry of
Defense too...
What if Russia had intervened to topple king Salman of Suadi Arabia because of him being a
fearsome dictator? Yet no one did nothing when the "arab spring" was brutally repressed in the
region (with the help of the USA).
It's quite hard not to admit the USA has been quite agressive and active ... So whose to
blame for this warfare and new cold war tensions? You might be more biased and less
Whitehousebot.
PS
Of course I'm not russian.
Bernard Knight 14 Dec 2015 21:40
At it's core ISIS, ISL, DEASH, call them what you will, are a murderous death cult using
jihad and the establishment of a califate as their raison d'etre. They are an ideology, an
idea. No amounts of bombing or taking territory will annihilate that idea. Perhaps it should
be the Islamic world that tackles this threat, starting with first and foremost, our foremost
arms purchasers, Saudi Arabia.
Shatford Shatford 14 Dec 2015 21:34
Asked if Obama had consciously chosen to make his rhetoric more aggressive for public
benefit, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said when the president meets the national
security council, "he is not looking at public opinion polls".
Obvious bullshit. It's this kind of Hilary Clinton-like waffling rhetoric and pandering to
opinion polls is what is driving the popularity of Donald Trump's campaign.
Nolan Harding 14 Dec 2015 21:25
The Islamic state is surrounded by hostile forces, they are under siege so how are they
getting ammunition, refined gasoline, food, internet service and all thier Toyota trucks.
Obviously the forces surrounding them are not that hostile. A real siege would have seen them
starving to death years ago. Like in Leningrad...now THAT was a siege and REAL war, not this
strategic game the deluded masses think is a ' war'.
JMWong 14 Dec 2015 21:24
Obama has missed the opportunity to announce that hw would the bunch of criminals
consisting of Bush, Cheney, Blair, Rumsfeld, Allbright, McCain, Cameron, Hollande, etc. to the
International Tribunal for trial for their crimes against humanity. They have murdered
millions of people.
bunkusmystic -> burnel 14 Dec 2015 21:18
Have a look at the latest Isis videos they have all the latest American weapons ... How do
you think they get them? Is it private citizens in Saudi who buy them or the government ...
The Saudis want the Iraqi and Syrian oil fields and they are using this Isis fabrication to
get them. If the coalition is so serious about fighting Isis how is it that thousands of oil
tankers pass through turkey each day? With no one noticing??? It's only Russia who is taking
real action
tjmars 14 Dec 2015 21:17
This is to draw the heat-seeker foreign press away from the Mad Turk Erdogan who is
fake-begging the Russians to prove the accusations that Erdogan Jr is running "red-stained
oil" to major buyers on the Turkish black market...
Ooops!...don't want to know who those 'terrorist supporting capitalists" are!...
Is this an example of 'laissez-faire" in Late Capitalism...a "bubble" for risk-taking
investors?
Whew! Its a good thing "Soylent Green" was a fictional commodity in movies or the funeral
homes would be void of any "dead meat" for ritual burials..
Thanlks to Capitalism, we will one day see the mythical "dog-eat-dog" aphorism come to light
with "god-damned" good profits...
The western central bankers weren't 'standing behind the curtain" pulling the levers of power
again were they?
Do a litmus test on their 'red tooth and claw' mentality...
Hey where did they go?
Obama made them disappear with his speech!
clashcr 14 Dec 2015 21:14
Hmm, not a word about Assad. Well US policy about radical Islam - take your pick there are
nearly 20 groups in Syria - is about it being overt and not covert. So, they are pleased when
radicals show their faces and establish territory because it attracts more radicals to leave
the west to go there to be killed. The other result may be that the moderates like the Muslim
Brotherhood who may seriously have been talking about a pan-Islamic Caliphate and Sharia law
have seen their cause put back by decades.
JMWong -> sage10 14 Dec 2015 21:12
If the USA wants to fight ISIS, it must attack ISIS at its source, that is, the countries
where the ISIS fighters originate. This means Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the USA itself, UK,
France, etc. Bomb these countries and the sources of ISIS fighters will dry up.
sashasmirnoff 14 Dec 2015 21:09
I apologize for deviating slightly from this story, but I have a link to share concerning
what would usually be considered a sensational story, but this paper has neglected to cover
it. A Turkish Parliamentarian has come forward with documented proof that in 2013 Turkey
supplied IS with the components to manufacture Sarin gas and facilitated their transport to
the IS in Syria. I have no idea why the Guardian doesn't consider this to be newsworthy.
I still see nothing but a PR blitz here. The strategy has not changed. The claims of
success are over-rated. ISIS still controls large swathes of territory; and more importantly,
it has shown it can project power internationally...all the way to the US...through sleeper
cells and lone wolf attacks. The only way to deal with such a pernicious organization is a
full on-the-ground massive combined arms assault: armor, air power, and heavy infantry. It
won't take a Desert Storm type campaign, as ISIS is no where near as large as Saddam's army;
but it will take a real coordinated military campaign with boots-on-the-ground to seize and
hold territory. No question about that. Obama won't commit to that type strategy, so it will
be up to the next President to do so, as ISIS will still be around by then, given Obama's
reliance solely on air power.
giorgio16 14 Dec 2015 20:59
...is Obama aware that Russia is already fighting isis,...and from the right side?... or he
is pretending he is in charge now?
...Saudis are fighting shias in Yemen on one side, creating a humanitarian disaster no one
wants to acknowledge, and Assad in Sirya on the other creating another disaster convenniently
blamed on Assad by Obama and co...interesting times ahead...
TomGray 14 Dec 2015 20:43
Obama used the same decapitation tactic against Al Queda. Al Queda destabilized because of
it and morphed into ISIS. There is no shortage of people who want to become leaders in any
organization. Obama's tactics may hinder ISIS but they will not cause the organized violence
that it currently represents to disappear. The players may change but the game remains the
same.
Decapitation can only be part of an effective strategy and so far Obama has not
demonstrated that he has the capability to draw together the other essential elements
ID4352889 -> DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 20:41
Saudi flew thousands of Jihadists out of Syria a while ago and sent them to Libya. It is
well documented. The West did not interfere. Presumably for the same reasons they didn't
interfere with the Turkey/Daesh oil scam.
DelOrtoyVerga 14 Dec 2015 20:35
Hurry up Obama before the Ruskies steal your thunder! or the few sparks that are left by
now that is...
Mwahahaha...
I'm sure these special forces, these token "boots on the ground" you are sending will be
exclusively focusing on ISIL and are not being sent to undermine the Syrian government or
their allies, I repeat the special forces ARE NOT BEING SENT TO UNDERMINE THE SYRIAN
GOVERNMENT OR THEIR ALLIES.
HowSicklySeemAll 14 Dec 2015 20:26
Why did the US wait until now to 'drop more bombs than ever before'?
Russian foreign minister recently stated that:
"We have noticed that the US-led coalition stepped up its fight against IS only after Russia
dispatched a combat air group to Syria. The coalition efforts undertaken in Syria earlier
could be described as odd, to say the least This brings to mind NATO's operations in
Afghanistan We don't want the fight to be feigned."
DomesticExtremist 14 Dec 2015 20:13
Can we assume from this that the fix is in: Kilary has been selected for Pres and Obomber
has to roll the pitch on her behalf so that she can hit the ground running?
"We came, we saw, they died. (insane cackle)."
Look out for some killer blow to be landed on the Donald soon.
Sualdam -> meewaan 14 Dec 2015 20:10
The biggest contribution America can make to getting rid of Isis is to "persuade" its
friends and allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey mainly - to turn off the tap of finance,
munitions and logistics to Isis, Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra) and its allies like Ahrar Al
Sham. No American ground troops needed; they would be counter-productive.
MrJanuary 14 Dec 2015 19:55
Well done Russia for mobilizing the worlds second largest military force, the USA, in Syria
against ISIS.
robertthebruce2014 -> MasonInNY 14 Dec 2015 19:48
We love Putin here in Europe, at least he defends European interests. The USA is only
defending Saudi and Israeli interest. We are currently in the process of breaking up the NATO
coalition. The USA can stick with Turkey, Israel, and the Saudis.
pierotg 14 Dec 2015 19:43
December 2015: "We are hitting Isil harder than ever" .
July 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2NkjNvwuaU
!!! Look at the eys of that general behind, please! He was falling almost asleep and then ...
frozen! Is it just my impression? That would be really hilarious if we weren't talking about
war and crimes against humanity.
Please, stop lying this way.
This is far too much. This is alienating.
The USA and UK governments are loosing all that was left of their credibility and reliability
in the last decade and the only strategy left seems to make the big lie bigger than ever. This
is like shouting at the world "I can do whatever suits me and f**k the rest!"
Even their relationships with their EU partners have proved slick.
I've been listening to politicians speeches and interviews lately and found myself thinking:
"That autocrat and ex KGB agent ruling Russia sounds much less hypocrite and far more
competent". What if you could choose between Putin or Trump to represent your country (just as
if they were sport pros you could hire for your team)?
This is far too much. This won't do any good and nuclear weapons can still destroy our planet
in 30 minutes. Whoever is behind this mess what's going to profit then? This is obscene
incompetence and fearsome irresponsibility.
In my teens Steve Stevens's Top Gun Theme got me goosebumps... On my Strat guitar there has
been a Union Jack pickguard for 25 years... What shall I tell my son when he will ask me why I
removed the original white one? I'm getting quite embarrassed.
Is it the End of the World as We know it? Yet I don't feel fine.
1ClearSense 14 Dec 2015 19:40
Yemen is the poorest Arab country with limited resources. The Saudis, along with a slew of
other Arab regimes have been bombing the Yemeni military and Houthi militia who were clearing
up Al Qaeda out of Yemen pretty good, for 9 months.
In the summer the Saudis and UAE sheiks decided to send ground forces to "liberate" Yemen.
Other than taking some part of southern Yemen with the help of separatists and jihadis of all
sort, they failed in their mission. A single attack on Saudi military caused dozens of Saudi
and Emarati dead. The Emaratis decided on Colombian mercenaries, the Saudi paid Sudanese
military to send troops. Yesterday the Yemenis killed a large number of these mercenaries
(anywhere between 80 to 150) including the Saudi commander and another high official and a
Emarati officer.
Southern Yemen, the "Saudi liberated" areas is being taken over by al Qaeda piece by piece,
and also ISIS has become very active. The idea that these Arab regimes can be productive in
anything to defeat jihadi terror is a pipe dream. It is all about public relations and having
"Sunni Arabs" along to defeat "Sunni Arabs" jihadis. This is so completely miscalculation that
will backfire. Saudis and their crew have no desire or ability to defeat the wahhabi
terrorists. The time has come to see it as what it is, the only way to defeat the jihadi
terrorists is teaming up with the people who are being successful, and that doesn't include
the Arab tyrannies.
Panda Bear -> Steven Wallace 14 Dec 2015 19:33
Did your father know offices controlled by the \British at Suez were apparently given over
to the Moslem Brotherhood? UK used Islamic extremists back then and US has continued the
policy it appears.
I was recently reminded of Churchill's speech about the possibility of Germans invading
Britain... "We'll fight them on the beeches" etc. Wonder if the Germans would have considered
the British fighters terrorists if they had managed to occupy Britain?
Occupation by foreign forces is ok if it's our forces or our allies and our enemies cannot
resist or they are designated as terrorists... National Sovereignty is disregarded whole sale
by US/NATO and allies.
One rule for us, another for 'them'! Hypocrisy reigns supreme.
Steven Wallace -> Zara Thustra 14 Dec 2015 19:32
haha ok well thats too simplistic Mr Zarathustra . The issue with Islamic fundamentalism is
that it uses a religion to kill innocents without targeting anyone of any real importance .
The Koran has not changed like the New Testament but I really do not believe that modern day
Muslims who pray would all wish to kill me because I am not a Muslim .
That scare mongering is simply a distraction ,as George Bush said " Who is this Bin Laden ?"
Well I would have said " You know him George ,his family financed your oil business ,they are
friends of your family ".
All Muslims are scary to us while the real issues are being ignored 24/7
The Bible is full of evil concepts ,why not consider ourselves in the West as evil Christians
?
Not me though ,I'm an atheist
LewisFriend -> Miramon 14 Dec 2015 19:32
Well Assad wasn't massacring people either till their was an uprising.. Yet in Syria people
were a lot more free than Saudi.. They also don't have the CIA on the ground encouraging one.
Be under no illusions the ruling Saudi clique are animals.
WatchEm 14 Dec 2015 19:30
Barack Obama warns leaders of Islamic State in speech: 'you are next'
Threats like that are enough to get my parrot squawking with laughter - forget any
"terrorists" or anyone with a live brain cell.
Yet more tries to reassure a domestic audience, who unlike the majority of nations, apparently
live in fear, and need convincing that the USG is doing something and "leading the way" in
their declared "War on Terrorism". It's like having to tolerate listening to the banality of
what purports to be US "news networks".
Unfortunately, after around 10,000 bombing runs and predictable time-wasting talk, the message
is still not sinking in that the Grand Master Plan of 'leading the way' is a failure and
reduced to hope that they can stop terrorism by 'taking out' some leadership. Yep, heard that
one before. The USG 'defeated terrorism' by 'taking out' Al Queda leaders - a number of them
34+ times. Al Queda no longer exists - not.
Instead of 'leading from the rear' and expecting other nations to clean up the carnage and
havoc left over by US adventures into the Middle East, perhaps the USG could find a few
non-torturers, non rapists and no members of US death squads and clean the region up with
their own trash collectors as 'boots on the ground'. Well... no harm in dreaming and
fantasising it might work and "we can win, win, win" ...
So, bottom line, order more bombs with taxpayers funds Carter, and pretend you matter while
the 'leader' continues the infantile rhetoric for US consumption, just as his predecessor did.
May the US people and people in other victim nations be saved from US 'little men' - both
'generals' and politicians.
PS Try not to bomb innocent men, women and children on the ground during the bombing runs.
They never deserved your slaughter, carnage, death squads and torture the last time around and
don't need a US euphemism, "collateral damage", to justify their deaths. But of course,
counting bodies is not a topic of conversation in the Rogue Regime of the West. It only
matters if it is US men, women and children who are slaughtered while the US regime role play
fighting for "democracy and freedom" by "leading from the rear".
Panda Bear -> MRModeratedModerate 14 Dec 2015 19:21
Some of them are very busy bombing Yemen to destruction and recruiting mercenaries in
places such as Columbia to help! The situation for citizens in Yemen is dire, some areas
described as on the verge of famine partly due to the embargo that is also imposed.
JMWong 14 Dec 2015 19:09
This speech shows the hypocrisy of the Americans. In fact, as it was made clear many times
before, the real objective of the USA is to invade Syria, to destroy Syria and to murder as
many Syrians as possible, including its President, Assad. The USA had the same objective with
regards to Iraq and Lybia. Iraq was invaded and destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
were murdered by the coalition of the willing led by the USA. The lives of tens of millions
Iraqis have been destroyed. Its President, Saddam Hussein was murdered. In the case of Libya,
the same coalition of the willing, led by the same USA, bombed Libya for six months. It was
the greatest terrorist attack over the last ten years. It was six months of terror for
millions of Libyans everyday for over six months. More than thirty thousand Libyans were
murdered in this exceptional terror attack, including its President, Kaddafi. Now, the USA is
leading the same coalition of the willing to murder hundreds of thousand Syrians. Assad must
go, chant the USA and its f...king partners. We heard the same chant with regrda to Saddam
Hussein and Kaddafi. Saddam Hussein must go. Kaddafi must go. As if the USA with its f..
Partners are the ones to choose who should and should not rule Iraq, Libya and Syria. ISIS was
created, is funded, trained armed and supported by the USA and its willing partners. For more
than one year that they are bombing Syria, they did not see the thousands and thousands of
trucks carrying robbed oil from Syria to Turkey. And now Obama, flanked by thecriminal Ash
Carter, a creature of McCain, claims that he is determined to fight ISIS. Since many of the
ISIS fighters come from the USA, UK, France, why do you not start by bombing the USA, UK,
France. Why start with Syria?
Steven Wallace 14 Dec 2015 19:05
Because truth has no place in the modern political theatre . Truth is down to perception
and when you control the media you control the truth .Remember NORID ,when the US funded the
IRA against the UK ? The IRA used bombs to kill many innocents in their resistance to the
British occupation . My brother was a soldier in the British Army and believed he was doing
the right thing by going to Northern Ireland . After reflection he now feels he was wrong to
be a part of that situation .My father served in Egypt during the Suez Crisis and felt he was
right to be there and later questioned why so many young lads were sent to such a inhospitable
foreign land . The reason always comes down to money .
MRModeratedModerate 14 Dec 2015 19:04
"in recent weeks we've unleashed a new wave of strikes on their lifeline, on their oil
infrastructure..."
I don't see no bombs falling on Turkey?
illbthr22 -> ObambiBot 14 Dec 2015 18:54
Your country provides nothing positive to the world. I watch American movies, eat American
food, listen to American music. Russia doesn't exist to me. The only time i hear Russia
mentioned is when Russia is threatening war with someone or 2 drunks are beating each other up
on youtube.
supercool -> BG Davis 14 Dec 2015 18:49
Again read my comment. The way the war on drugs is waged and fought. It is never ending,
murky and with so many dubious allegiances.
The war on terror is never ending, murky and with so many dubious allegiance. For example we
exported Jihadism to Afghanistan to defeat the invading communist Soviet's, they eventually
morphed to the Taliban who then gave sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. Which formed an affiliate branch
in Iraq after our invasion in 2003 and which morphed into the Islsmic state.
HollyOldDog -> stonedage 14 Dec 2015 18:48
Obama is the first black American President but that doesn't mean that he is the first
sensible one.
Whitt -> supercool 14 Dec 2015 18:46
As someone who is old enough to have lived under two great Presidents and three
great-but-flawed Presidents, I'm saying that Obama is a 2nd-rater at best. A hundred years
from now he'll be a triva-question President like Millard Fillmore or Grover Cleaveland.
OscarAwesome 14 Dec 2015 18:44
Sure, this is typical political spruiking. Obama doing the Commander in Chief thing,
proclaiming PROGRESS, reaffirming how bad the 'enemy' are, saying tough things as a response
to the accusations of weakness by US conservatives (who are coy about what their actual
alternative to Obama's approach is because it probably looks very much like catastrophic full
invasion foolishness of George W's Iraq war), blah, blah, we've seen it all before on
countless occasions.
The situation in Syria in particular is ridiculously complex and consists of a plethora of
detail and options for action about which we will all have wildly divergent opinions.
But there is a part of this that is simple. There are practically zero options for dealing
with ISIL/IS/ISIS/whatever besides killing them. They seek no negotiations, offer no potential
compromise position and their take on politics is to simply kill everyone who isn't them. The
lack of alternate, peaceful/diplomatic options ISIS and similar groups offer, with their
preposterous Dark Ages philosophies, is in a macabre way almost refreshing.
The hard bit is how to kill/capture/degrade their capability without a) slaughtering
bystanders and b) causing such carnage as to act as an ISIS recruitment agency.
For all the great many faults and excesses of the West and the larger Muslin world, ISIS
do not in any way offer a comprehensive socio-political alternate system of government with
a vestige of logical appeal to humanity (unlike, say the threat communism represented in the
20th century). They have some vague pipe dream of apocalyptic conflict where the other 99.999%
of the human race is either slaughtered or magically converted to embracing the reversal of
human history by 1,500 years. Not going to happen. Silly.
The threat ISIS represent is largely emotional. Unless you are lightning-strike like
unfortunate (or they get hold of nuclear weapons) ISIS disturb our assumptions of physical
safety in a symbolic way only. The histrionics generated by that fear is our real enemy.
Popeyes 14 Dec 2015 18:44
What a disappointment, I was waiting for Obama to explain just why he didn't bomb IS oil
facilities, and why the U.S. are still best buddies with Saudi who it seems supplies and
finances most of the terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Nothing new here move along.
Horst Faranelli 14 Dec 2015 18:43
...but the spot oil price is squeezing the heart out of Russia.
Panda Bear -> GustavoB 14 Dec 2015 18:43
There have been reports for a while (since Russia began bombing) that Isis have been
fleeing Syria and many commanders have relocated to Libya. Isis have overtaken one of the so
called governments and are making gains, oil assets their next target I read yesterday.
Seasuka -> DoomGlitter 14 Dec 2015 18:41
Whatever America's position now, for decades they have supported and helped to arm Salafist
jihadis through Saudi and the Muslim World league in opposition to any secular or perceived
communist movements in the region which might threaten oil supplies. Ditto uk.
jmNZ 14 Dec 2015 18:40
The secular Syrian government, with women in its ranks, is fighting for its life
against a most ruthless and abominable enemy: fanatical jihadist mercenaries financed by an
execrable mediaeval tyranny, Saudi Barbaria. This is the enemy of all we stand for, the enemy
that perpetrated 9/11 and 7/7 and their latest clone that bombed Paris concert-goers and
Russian holiday-makers. They are paid and trained by Riyadh. And armed to the teeth with
modern American weapons, passed to them by the newest demagogue, Turkey's Erdoğan.
The sworn enemy of all these head-chopping bigots is Assad's secular republic of Syria
because it challenges the ideological dogmatism of Sharia Law. This law is as rigid as
Hitler's Nazism or Stalin's communism.
And we wonder whether we should support Assad?
For the record, here are some undisputed facts:
30 countries, including South Africa, sent election observers to Syria and found them to be
"reasonably free and fair". This was in 2014 when Basher al-Assad got 88% of the vote in the
first multi-party presidential elections. Nearly half the population of Syria actually made it
to the polls. Not half the electorate, half the population.
Syria is governed by 5 parties in coalition opposed by a 2 party coalition of 5 members and
77 "Independents". Assad's Baqath Party has a majority, 134 out of 250.
Syria is today's Czechoslovakia.
Whitt -> supercool 14 Dec 2015 18:34
"Compare his Presidency with George Bush or most previous American President's if recent
years." - supercool
*
Considering that most of the Presidents that we've had over the last few decades have been
mediocrities and that Bush Jr. was downright incompetent, that is truly an example of damning
with faint praise.
*
*
"Obama goes into the history books as a great President who achieved so many first's"
*
To paraphrase the immortal Douglas Adams, this is obviously some strange usage of the word
"great" that I was not previously aware of.
ByThePeople 14 Dec 2015 18:10
"in recent weeks'...'destroying hundreds of their (ISIL's) tanker trucks, wells and
refineries. So far, ISIL has lost about 40% of the populated area it once controlled n Iraq."
Anyone else a bit shocked that after having several countries dropping bombs on ISIL for an
extended period of time - that ISIL would still be in possession of hundreds of tanker trucks,
wells and refineries - their 'life line'....?
A full fledged oil business in up, running and in the market to sell oil - which is obviously
all being bought up and these revenues, combined with other revenue streams, have been
supporting ISIL's efforts for an extended period of time.
I wonder if because 'a few weeks' was finally taken to supposedly destroy this critical
infrastructure - if the 'evasive' ISIL oil business - along with revenues - will suffer? I
also wonder why the air campaign hasn't been extended to include the purchasers of ISIL's oil
supplies - at sea and in their home countries.
And here in lies the problem. The US is not serious about taking down ISIS. They are a
convient bunch of psychopaths that can be used for various agendas the US has in mind.
Including but not limited to weakening/removing Assad, getting Iran embroiled in costly war,
terrifying domestic populations into giving up freedoms, justifying more military
interventions that go against international law.
The list goes on
1ClearSense 14 Dec 2015 17:59
The cult of Wahhabi terrorist supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Turkey need to be
defeated. With all the public information available, we are here because of all the wrong
moves by the US. It is about time to nip this in the bud. The root problem is in Saudi Arabia.
In no uncertain terms US needs to tell the Arab tyrannies to stop the jihadi terror. It is
obviouse US has listened to the Saudis and Qataris to create a Sunni militia in Iraq, Syria to
"confront" Iran. The imaginary ghost that constantly scares Saudi tyranny. The result has been
all the various head chopping terror groups. The "Sunni" Arab tyrannies will never supply
troops to take over areas occupied by terrorists. Qatar demands sanitizing al Qaeda terrorist
in Syria and giving them a say. It is stupid to even consider these as allies in fight against
the wahhabi Islamist terrorists. Time has come to forget about removing Assad, just cooperate
with Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq to take back land from all terrorists step by step, and have
the legitimate government in Syria and Iraq, with their pro government militia control the
ground.
TheBorderGuard -> gunnison 14 Dec 2015 17:55
Isis must ultimately be defeated by Muslim forces, or we'll be manufacturing radical
faster than we can kill them.
The Muslims seem to be manufacturing radicals quickly enough without any help from us.
TonyBlunt 14 Dec 2015 17:51
"We are hitting Isil harder than ever."
Here is how hard the US and their regional allies have been hitting ISIL and the other
jihadi terrorists:
Good docu about that recently. Might still be available on BBCiplayer. The Americans bought
Saudi drilling rights for 2cents and the Brits bought Iraqi rights for tuppence. Twenty years
later the middle easterns thought "hold on a minute," and offered a fifty-fifty split. The
Americans pragmatically accepted, thus their relationship with the House of Saud, the Brits
got all uppity at the natives and got kicked out.
TheSindhiAbbasi -> gunnison 14 Dec 2015 17:45
What about billions of US military equipment in Iraq, that was captured by Daesh?
gunnison 14 Dec 2015 17:40
Freeze Saudi assets and blockade all their exports until they send all that gee-whiz
military equipment we sold them into this fight, and all the Saudi military we trained too.
Isis must ultimately be defeated by Muslim forces, or we'll be manufacturing radical faster
than we can kill them.
Panda Bear -> Jools12 14 Dec 2015 17:36
"We only get some action now that Russia has been attacking ISIS in Syria and of course
there is minimal reporting of the successes of the Russians in Western media."
Exactly. Russia is the old enemy, it is interfering and questioning US actions and has huge
natural resources. Putin called them out in his speech at the UN...
US has been provoking Russia for some time, and is also provoking China. This may not end well
for any of us and no one will stand up and demand it stops!
HAGGISANCHIPS -> ame1ie 14 Dec 2015 17:34
The nazi ideology was removed militarily. It couldn't survive because it was morally wrong
and repugnant, like Daesh.
Edward Frederick Ezell 14 Dec 2015 17:27
Sending our professional agents of coercion and terror to kill people in foreign countries
over which we somehow more or less claim jurisdiction is not something that is clearly
beneficial in the long term although it does respond appropriately to the call for vengeance
and blood from our own political actors.
Panda Bear -> Taku2 14 Dec 2015 17:27
US has turned it into a proxy war with Russia and Iran and has called in the NATO allies to
back them up. Obama seems to work differently to previous presidents like Bush, he seems to
like to work quietly using drones and not much publicized actions and calls in the NATO and
allied troops to cover their actions.
Taku2 14 Dec 2015 17:23
America will do this America will do that. Well, guess what; you cannot do it on your own.
You cannot make a successful strategic plan to fight Daesh without the Russians, Iranians and
Syrian government forces being integral elements of such a plan.
Daesh is like an Hydra, so bombing alone cannot defeat it, it just spread it to new areas. You
need to do an honest review of how Daesh was created; albeit, unintentionally, by
ill-conceived American and EU/NATO policies in the Middle East and Africa.
America and EU/NATO cannot effective fight the war being waged by Daesh and Al Qaeda, until
they have learned the lessons to be learned from their misguided policies, and openly
acknowledged the mistakes they have made.
Sunrise_Song 14 Dec 2015 17:18
What would it be like to live in a truly peaceful and free world? All it takes is strength,
foresight and the guts to be honest.
All the things the West is failing at. Obama like most Western leaders is a weaver of lies and
half-truths.
How can we ever have peace until we challenge the core issue? This is an ideological fight.
It's a war of minds. ISIS believe the West is a basin of sin. That our liberal and secular
ways need to be destroyed and replaced by their ideologies and way of life.
Only, we can see they're wrong. That even with our faults and flaws, our belief in freedom,
democracy and equality is the best way, still we defend that same ideology in our own nations.
Obama is failing the American people. Just like Merkel and Co are failing the European people.
Bombs won't stop IS.
Jools12 14 Dec 2015 17:18
What have they been doing for the last two years then? No attacks on ISIS trucks
transporting oil, no sanctions on countries that have been buying that oil. We only get some
action now that Russia has been attacking ISIS in Syria and of course there is minimal
reporting of the successes of the Russians in Western media. As far as Libya is concerned,
there are very ominous signs that ISIS is moving to set up headquarters in that country, a
country a lot closer to Europe than Syria or Iraq are. There is also the problem that the
Russians will not be involved in Libya, unlike Syria, they do not have a functioning
government to ask them in. Libya is the nightmare created by NATO and the US, they will have
to take full responsibility for their dreadful actions there and fight the barbarians they
created, no sitting back and allowing them to flourish this time.
TheBorderGuard 14 Dec 2015 17:13
Obama told reporters: "This continues to be a difficult fight. Isil is dug in, including
in urban areas, and they hide behind civilians, using defenceless men, women and children
as human shields. So even as we're relentless, we have to be smart, targeting Isil
surgically, with precision."
Good luck, boss. Ask Netanyahu how it went for the Israelis when they tried to end Hamas'
rocket attacks from Gaza. Because that's the kind of foe you'll be up against.
poechristy 14 Dec 2015 17:10
Someone has obviously told Obama that his Mr Nice Guy act was merely encouraging Islamic
State and their supporters in the US. It's time for all Western nations to make clear that
anyone involved in any way with Islamic State-funding them, promoting them, or returning from
fighting for them- will feel the full force of the law. I can't understand why those returning
from Syria are not immediately arrested and held to account.
I rather suspect we wouldn't be seeing the same appeasement if white supremacists were
returning from a foreign land having been involved in the torture,rape and murder of ethnic
minorities.
lefthalfback2 DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 17:06
NYT said a few days back that ISIS are looking to Surt in Libya as the spot to which they
can decamp if the Heat comes down in Iraq. Does not seem likely to me since it is on the coast
and could easily be struck from the sea.
Whitt DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 17:03
Weren't you paying attention?
(1) We have a coalition of the willing in the international War on Terror.
(2) ISIS is on their last legs. There's nothing left but a bunch of dead-enders.
(3) We're squeezing their heart in Iraq, their balls in Syria, and their spleen in Libya.
(4) There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
(5) Ve are vinning ze var!
Now get with the program and quit interfering with the narrative or it's off to Gitmo with
you, me lad!
ohhaiimark 14 Dec 2015 16:58
Want to stop ISIS? It's rather simple. Sanction those who fund them. Sanction those who
spread Wahhabism. Sanction those who buy oil off them....Basically sanction all of America's
allies in the region.
Then work together with the Russians, the Syrians, the Iranians and whoever else is willing to
send ground troops in to take each town and city occupied by these scumbags one by one.
You can't defeat ISIS if your goal is also to remove Assad. That will only help ISIS. It's
time to wake up from that delusion that Assad is going anywhere. Once the war is over, then we
can let the Syrian people decide who will lead them through democratic elections.
Djinn666 14 Dec 2015 16:56
They've squeezed so hard that it oozed into Libya and other points on the compass,
including San Bernardino.
Note to CIC Obama, However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results
(Winston Churchill).
Fence2 14 Dec 2015 16:54
What a farce, who does Obama think he's kidding? If the US was serious about ISIS it
would have been finished off a year ago, now that Russia has called the US's bluff they now
have to pretend to step up to the plate. Pathetic.
DogsLivesMatter 14 Dec 2015 16:50
Meanwhile in Libya....http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/world-leaders-push-libya-peace-isil-fills-vacuum-151214044020934.html
Apparently there are 3,000 ISIL fighters in Libya at the moment. It's time President Obama and
John Kerry gave us the whole story, but I guess with Saudi Arabia and Turkey being allies the
US can't rock the boat too much.
dikcheney 14 Dec 2015 16:48
More drivel from the counterfeit president. His allies in the middle east are
disgusting butchers. Take Turkey: it is a great shame for Turkey that 32 journalists are
imprisoned in the 21st century. Some were arrested on Nov. 26 after being charged in May with
espionage, revealing confidential documents and membership in a terrorist organization. The
charges are related to a report published by a leading newspaper claiming weapons-loaded
trucks that were discovered in January 2014 en route to Syria actually belonged to the
National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and had been sent to provide support to rebel groups.
The USA has been seduced and conned for decades until its entire policy is focused on fighting
proxy wars to keep the middle east ablaze in the interests of others. SHAME on the dumb USA.
laguerre 14 Dec 2015 16:39
A load of rubbish. US supports the Saudis, who support ISIS. US attacks on ISIS are not
serious, as the speech suggests.
There are two possibilities here: iether Guardian pressitutes sometimes try to play degenarates
or they consider their readers to be degenerates...
Notable quotes:
"... Typical The Moscow Times garbage. ..."
"... Hmmm, some really sophisticated comments and analysis apropos of current issues in geopolitics and international relations. Nuanced, objective, and informative. Excuse me but I have to go watch some more esoteric reportage from Fox News. ..."
Hmmm, some really sophisticated comments and analysis apropos of current issues in
geopolitics and international relations. Nuanced, objective, and informative.
Excuse me but I have to go watch some more esoteric reportage from Fox News.
Blocking Democracy as Syria's Solution By Robert Parry
The long-cherished neocon dream of "regime change" in Syria is blocking a possible route
out of the crisis – a ceasefire followed by elections in which President Assad could compete.
The problem is there's no guarantee that Assad would lose and thus the dream might go unfulfilled.
By Robert Parry
The solution to the crisis in Syria could be democracy – letting the people of Syria decide
who they want as their leaders – but it is the Obama administration and its regional Sunni "allies,"
including U.S.-armed militants and jihadists, that don't want to risk a democratic solution because
it might not achieve the long-held goal of "regime change."
Some Syrian opposition forces, which were brought together under the auspices of the Saudi
monarchy in Riyadh this past week, didn't even want the word "democracy" included in their joint
statement. The New York Times reported on Friday, "Islamist delegates objected to using the word
'democracy' in the final statement, so the term 'democratic mechanism' was used instead, according
to a member of one such group who attended the meeting."
Even that was too much for Ahrar al-Sham, one of the principal jihadist groups fighting side-by-side
with Al Qaeda's Nusra Front, the two key elements inside the Saudi-created Army of Conquest, which
uses sophisticated U.S.-supplied TOW missiles to kill Syrian government troops.
Ahrar al-Sham announced its withdrawal from the Riyadh conference because the meeting didn't
"confirm the Muslim identity of our people." Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sought to maintain
a secular government that protects the rights of Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other religious
minorities, but Sunni militants have been fighting to overthrow him since 2011.
Despite Ahrar al-Sham's rejection of the Saudi-organized conference, all the opposition participants,
including one from Ahrar al-Sham who apparently wasn't aware of his group's announcement, signed
the agreement, the Times reported.
"All parties signed a final statement that called for maintaining the unity of Syria and building
a civil, representative government that would take charge after a transitional period, at the
start of which Mr. Assad and his associates would step down," wrote Times' correspondent Ben Hubbard.
But the prospects of Assad and his government just agreeing to cede power to the opposition
remains highly unlikely. An obvious alternative – favored by Assad and Russian President Vladimir
Putin – is to achieve a ceasefire and then have internationally supervised elections in which
the Syrian people could choose their own leaders.
Although President Barack Obama insists Assad is hated by most Syrians – and if that's true,
he would presumably lose any fair election – the U.S. position is to bar Assad from the ballot,
thus ensuring "regime change" in Syria, a long-held goal of Official Washington's neoconservatives.
In other words, to fulfill the neocons' dream of Syrian "regime change," the Obama administration
is continuing the bloody Syrian conflict which has killed a quarter million people, has created
an opening for Islamic State and Al Qaeda terrorists, and has driven millions of refugees into
and through nearby countries, now destabilizing Europe and feeding xenophobia in the United States.
For his part, Assad called participants in the Saudi conference "terrorists" and rejected the
idea of negotiating with them. "They want the Syrian government to negotiate with the terrorists,
something I don't think anyone would accept in any country," Assad told Spanish journalists, as
he repeated his position that many of the terrorists were backed by foreign governments and that
he would only "deal with the real, patriotic national opposition."
Kinks in the Process
Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Friday that he was in contact with senior Saudi
officials and noted, "there are some questions and obviously a couple of – in our judgment – kinks
to be worked out" though expressing confidence that the problems could be resolved.
A key problem appears to be that the Obama administration has so demonized Assad and so bought
into the neocon goal of "regime change" that Obama doesn't feel that he can back down on his "Assad
must go!" mantra. Yet, to force Assad out and bar him from running in an election means escalating
the war by either further arming the Sunni jihadists or mounting a larger-scale invasion of Syria
with the U.S. military confronting Syrian and now Russian forces to establish what is euphemistically
called "a safe zone" inside Syria. A related "no-fly zone" would require destroying Syrian air
defenses, now supplied by the Russians.
Obama has largely followed the first course of action, allowing Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey
and other Sunni "allies" to funnel U.S. weapons to jihadists, including Ahrar al-Sham which fights
alongside Al Qaeda's Nusra Front as the two seek to transform Syria into a Islamic fundamentalist
state, a goal shared by Al Qaeda's spinoff (and now rival), the Islamic State.
Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, has termed Obama's choice of aiding the jihadists a "willful decision," even in the face
of DIA warnings about the likely rise of the Islamic State and other extremists.
In August 2012, DIA described the danger in a classified report, which noted that "The salafist,
the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq, later ISI or ISIS and then the Islamic State]
are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria." The report also said that "If the situation
unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared salafist principality
in eastern Syria" and that "ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other
terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria."
Despite these risks, Obama continued to insist that "Assad must go!" and let his administration
whip up a propaganda campaign around claims that Assad's forces launched a sarin gas attack outside
Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. Though many of the U.S. claims about that attack have since been discredited
– and later evidence implicated radical jihadists (possibly collaborating with Turkish intelligence)
trying to trick the U.S. military into intervening on their side – the Obama administration did
not retract or clarify its initial claims.
By demonizing Assad – much like the demonization of Russian President Putin – Obama may feel
that he is deploying "soft power" propaganda to put foreign adversaries on the defensive while
also solidifying his political support inside hawkish U.S. opinion circles, but false narratives
can take on a life of their own and make rational settlements difficult if not impossible....
ilsm-> anne...
The Syria terror consortium was in Riyadh checking in with their bankers. To the Sunni democracy
is apostate anathema.
anne -> ilsm...
I understand the frustration and beyond, after all I read about Yemen being bombed with American
bombs and target sightings and I cannot imagine the policy incentives driving us.
Nonetheless,
the Yemen bombings go on day on day on day.
anne -> ilsm...
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen? Who could possibly ever understand, but our policy makers act as though
they do.
European nationalism is an allergic reaction to neoliberalism. Guardian does not mention Ukraine and Baltic states. also far right nationalist goverment with
Baltic states imposing "Baltic version of apartheid" to Russian speaking minority.
Such is the picture in western Europe. In eastern Europe, the nationalist right is already in
power in Hungary and in Poland. Viktor Orbán in Budapest is the pioneering cheerleader. He has no
opposition to speak of. His main "opposition" comes not from the centre-left but from the
neo-fascist Jobbik movement. In Poland, Jarosław Kaczyński and his Law and Justice party in
Poland are wasting little time in aping Orbán's constitutional trickery to entrench itself in
power.
On the critical issues of the day – immigration, security and Euroscepticism – there is little to
separate Orbán and Kaczyński from President Miloš Zeman in Prague and Robert Fico, prime minister
of Slovakia, both on the left. Besides, on economics, the role of the state and welfare, the
far-right parties are way to the left of social democracy, seeking to turn the clock back to
state interventionism, full employment, generous pensions and welfare systems (for native whites,
not immigrants).
What these far-right parties in east and west all share are chipped shoulders heaving with
grievance – summed up as hostility to and rejection of globalisation and multiculturalism. They
do not like modern life. They are anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-American (Poland
excepted), illiberal. And they like Vladimir Putin (again, except Kaczyński).
They are nationalists. This also militates against making common cause despite all the
similarities in outlook, because nationalists usually see foes rather than friends in other
nationalists.
... It is a tall order. The
European Union has never looked so temporary and fragile.
"... There's nothing new in shale gas that the oil industry itself hasn't done before. Hydrofracturing as a technique for enhancing oil recovery was developed over 50 years ago, and most of the North Sea was fracked (as are oil wells all over the world). The big technological breakthrough that allowed exploitation of shale gas was horizontal drilling, which allowed long pipes to be installed in the (usually narrow) shale gas strata. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia trying to kill the shale oil industry in USA, limit Iran rise and as a bonus undermine Russian military activities. ..."
"... The falling price of oil has initiated a historic wealth transfer effect of about $1 trillion a year between net oil importers and oil exporters reversing decades of historical trend. The US consumer alone gets $200 billion, and Europe and Asia (especially India and China) are even bigger beneficiaries of this massive wealth transfer of wealth by cheap oil. ..."
"... This is what's called an economic stimulus - but from cheaper oil prices. As Bloomberg noted recently: OPEC Provides Economic Stimulus Central Bankers Can't or Won't ..."
"... A non-economists understanding of macro is almost always politics masquerading as science. ..."
"... The theory that Saudi has engineered this oil price drop is nonsense. If they wanted to do this they would have increased production. The price fall is mostly due to the vast amount of speculation in US shale oil that completely ignored the effect of a massive increase in supply on price. These speculators are now paying for this mistake by leading the world in corporate defaults. Shale oil production will eventually slow down due to lack of finance and the price will start to increase. I don't think anyone can predict future price due to the complexity. ..."
"... Did you miss the bit where Russia will need to make cuts all the way through its services in line with the money they are losing via weak experts? Do you understand the knock-on effect this has through the rest of her economy - the recession it generates? Macroeconomics is a very interesting subject, and Creekwhore seems to have a good grasp on it. ..."
"... Hard to know which makes them happier, really. I was doing some work in Saudi in 2012 and there was a lot of concern there that not only were they losing the supply monopoly, but that as the US was becoming not just self-sufficient but an exporter it would make KSA less strategically relevant to the US and others in the west and therefore lose them influence on world events. They know they need the realpolitik power of the being the swing-producer in the oil cartel as without it no-one in the west is queuing up to be the natural ally of a quasi-medieval despotism with a lousy human rights record and a deal with some very suspect religious extremists. ..."
"... My take on this is that the Russian economy is also a target - even perhaps the real target. ..."
"... The Saudi's tactics are supposedly designed to hit the US shale producers, but, from what I understand, if these do go under they can quite easily start up again when the oil price recovers, then we're back to where we started. What is the point of all this market manipulation? ..."
"... US shale producers are much better placed than anyone expected them to be. Saudi Arabia has maybe another 18 months to play at this before they start to really rack up the debts. You've got a young, angry, largely unemployed population there that's basically pacified by the largesse of public spending. ..."
The consultancy Capital
Economics said: "Brent's [short-lived] dip today below $40 per barrel is a further damning
verdict on Opec's bungled communications after its meeting last Friday. However, it was never
likely that the group would agree to cut output to boost prices. Instead, any recovery next year
will depend on reductions in non-Opec supply and on stronger demand. On this basis, while we are
lowering our end-2016 forecast for Brent from $60 to $55, we continue to expect oil prices to
stage a partial recovery next year."
Hugh Easton -> woldsgardener 11 Dec 2015 13:57
There's nothing new in shale gas that the oil industry
itself hasn't done before. Hydrofracturing as a technique for enhancing oil recovery was
developed over 50 years ago, and most of the North Sea was fracked (as are oil wells all over
the world). The big technological breakthrough that allowed exploitation of shale gas was
horizontal drilling, which allowed long pipes to be installed in the (usually narrow) shale
gas strata.
So why do environmentalists make a big deal of hydrofracking
at all? As with so much else green, there's no science behind it. They've just seized on a
scarysounding something and are using it to bamboozle the public into thinking that a
technology they oppose is dangerous.
TheinfamousmrFox -> sportinlifesport 11 Dec 2015 08:44
Actually, they're losing money. Even those with the lowest production costs (Saudi A) are
burning through their currency reserves at a fantastic rate.
Essentially, OPEC are betting they can crush the US and Russian oil industries before they go
broke themselves. However they didn't count on the growing green momentum starting to replace
a lot of fossil fuel technology;- and that's not going to get slower.
Boutros Gladius ID6232853 11 Dec 2015 03:56
Check your numbers before you call nonsense. Demand was up 1.4m barrels/day in 2014, and is
projected to be up by over a million for 2015 and 2016. In fact, it's up a similar amount
every year for the last decade, with the single exception of the year of the financial crash.
Demand increases will inexorably eat up any oversupply -- this price reduction is a mere blip.
ncaplan88 9 Dec 2015 18:40
It's great for us in America. Almost all retail is pegging to the price of shipping.
Shipping is deisel fueled. Better to let OPEC run down their stocks than pump out the last of
our reserves. King Salman is a good ally to help weaken our traditional enemies.
zacmcd -> zoggo 9 Dec 2015 17:43
Conspiracy theory rubbish. The low interest rate environment has led money to chase bad
high yield investments, while the oil price was high this included shale. China's economic
slow down has meant oil consumption growth hasn't risen as expected so supply now exceeds
demand.
Russia along with Norway, Brazil, Canada etc are being punished for not having diversified
economies not because Uncle Sam does or doesn't like them.
BlueMazda 9 Dec 2015 12:24
Forget the two big players, Russian and Saudis. What is the impact on the smaller producers
in the ME, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan et. al.? Are they selling at below extraction
costs per barrel? Will we see a ME recession? Social turmoil?
Timothy Underwood -> Chris Johnson 9 Dec 2015 10:52
Its not sad at all. The reason low oil prices is bad for 'the markets' is because the oil
price drop basically means that consumers spend less on gas, and then instead buy more TVs,
cars and eat out more often.
The margins on hundred dollar oil are really, really good for companies. The majority of that
money isn't spent pumping and refining the oil. Most of the money when Exxon sells a barrel at
$100 goes to Exxon shareholders (and whatever country the oil is pumped in).
TVs and cars are very competitive markets. When you buy a car or TV generally 90-95% of the
money goes to making the car, which leaves only a little left over for the shareholders of
Ford or Samsung. So low oil prices are hurt the share price of oil companies far more than
they help the share prices of non oil companies.
In other words low oil prices move money from rich people to ordinary people. Non oil things
are just less profitable to sell on average.
The value of the market is a rough proxy for how much money rich people expect to get for
owning companies over the next 15 years. Oil being low means rich people get less money for
owning companies, money which gas buyers instead have to spend on whatever they want.
AdamMps -> creekwhore 9 Dec 2015 06:41
this move may well drive the global economy off a cliff
Cheap oil is both good and bad for the global economy. Bad for oil investment, good because
consumers and business will save money on fuel and presumably spend it elsewhere instead.
There's been a few articles which suggest that it's bad outweighs the good this time around,
but it certainly doesn't drive the global economy off a cliff.
ID6232853 -> gottliebvera 9 Dec 2015 06:06
Saudi Arabia trying to kill the shale oil industry in USA, limit Iran rise and as a bonus
undermine Russian military activities.
psygone 9 Dec 2015 05:22
This is all good news.
The falling price of oil has initiated a historic wealth transfer effect of about $1 trillion
a year between net oil importers and oil exporters reversing decades of historical trend. The
US consumer alone gets $200 billion, and Europe and Asia (especially India and China) are even
bigger beneficiaries of this massive wealth transfer of wealth by cheap oil.
This is what's called an economic stimulus - but from cheaper oil prices. As Bloomberg noted recently: OPEC Provides Economic Stimulus Central Bankers Can't or Won't
The Middle East and Russia with diminishing and constrained sovereign funds are the ones
getting stuck with the bill. Oil producers with diversified economies like Canada and Norway
will do well.
Thank you cheap oil and carry on ......... "drill baby drill"
SenseCir -> mrolius 9 Dec 2015 04:35
Did you miss the bit where Russia will need to make cuts all the way through its
services in line with the money they are losing via weak experts?
Yes countries that foolishly turned their blessing with a natural resource into a
dependency of exporting it suffer, and their suffering propagates to an extent. That doesn't
drive the global economy of a cliff, nor even is the net effect negative. Once again, when
those blessed with oil decide to charge less for it, surplus is shifted.
Macroeconomics is a very interesting subject, and Creekwhore seems to have a good
grasp on it.
I doubt it. A non-economists understanding of macro is almost always politics
masquerading as science.
bjamesr 9 Dec 2015 04:31
The theory that Saudi has engineered this oil price drop is nonsense. If they wanted to
do this they would have increased production. The price fall is mostly due to the vast amount
of speculation in US shale oil that completely ignored the effect of a massive increase in
supply on price. These speculators are now paying for this mistake by leading the world in
corporate defaults. Shale oil production will eventually slow down due to lack of finance and
the price will start to increase. I don't think anyone can predict future price due to the
complexity.
mrolius -> SenseCir 9 Dec 2015 04:09
Did you miss the bit where Russia will need to make cuts all the way through its
services in line with the money they are losing via weak experts? Do you understand the
knock-on effect this has through the rest of her economy - the recession it generates?
Macroeconomics is a very interesting subject, and Creekwhore seems to have a good grasp on it.
JemWallis -> SenseCir 9 Dec 2015 04:04
But given the oversupply of oil, you will be forced to pay a substantial premium for the
storage of your commodity since you will be competing for long term storage space. That factor
alone will add to your costs and therefore the price you will accept to make the 'huge profit'
will get ever larger. What if prices rise more slowly than your on-going costs?
TheHighRoad -> WaldorfTBeagle 9 Dec 2015 03:57
Hard to know which makes them happier, really. I was doing some work in Saudi in 2012
and there was a lot of concern there that not only were they losing the supply monopoly, but
that as the US was becoming not just self-sufficient but an exporter it would make KSA less
strategically relevant to the US and others in the west and therefore lose them influence on
world events. They know they need the realpolitik power of the being the swing-producer in the
oil cartel as without it no-one in the west is queuing up to be the "natural ally" of a
quasi-medieval despotism with a lousy human rights record and a deal with some very suspect
religious extremists.
SenseCir -> creekwhore 9 Dec 2015 03:51
The fact this move may well drive the global economy off a cliff
How so, because a fundamental good everyone needs is cheap? Because, assuming Opec
cannot defeat the frackers, their price schedule does not maximise their profit, shifting
some of the surplus to consumers and non-oil producing countries?
What the fuck are you talking about?
SenseCir rjb04tony 9 Dec 2015 03:48
What is the point of all this market manipulation?
Why do you call it 'market manipulation' when they lower prices through shipping a lot, and
not when they raise prices through restricting output? The latter is what they would ideally
like to do, because it maximises profit. Opec are a cartel. The consumers, and countries that
don't export oil, lose when they exercise their monopoly power.
SA clearly think that a Standard Oilish strategy will work. If they deem to have damaged
other oil producers sufficiently, you can rest assured that the price of oil will go up again,
ensuring billions of economic profit going to SA and others, extracted from everyone else.
zoggo -> rjb04tony 9 Dec 2015 03:46
My take on this is that the Russian economy is also a target - even perhaps the real
target.
WaldorfTBeagle 9 Dec 2015 03:07
I doubt Saudi's strategy has much to do with US frackers personally and lots to do with
hurting Iran.
rjb04tony 9 Dec 2015 02:53
The Saudi's tactics are supposedly designed to hit the US shale producers, but, from what I
understand, if these do go under they can quite easily start up again when the oil price
recovers, then we're back to where we started. What is the point of all this market
manipulation?
graz 9 Dec 2015 02:36
US shale producers are much better placed than anyone expected them to be. Saudi Arabia
has maybe another 18 months to play at this before they start to really rack up the debts.
You've got a young, angry, largely unemployed population there that's basically pacified by
the largesse of public spending.
The problem with the House of Saud. They've got some of the best economists money can buy but
you've got the egos of some 'limited' princes overruling them.
Never mind the oil price, if these fools miscalculate on this, on their Yemeni adventures, it
could spell chaos for the Middle East and the wider world. >
In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries
In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment,
it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 6 percent of what the
U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia
as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent
of GDP.
In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries
In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment,
it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 7.4 percent ** of what
the U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia
as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent
of GDP.
In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries
In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment,
it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 6 percent of what the
U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia
as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent
of GDP.
(I see my comment on military spending here created a bit of confusion. I was looking at the
U.S. share of the commitment, 0.25 percent of its GDP and comparing it to the roughly 4.0 percent
of GDP it spends on the military. That comes to 6 percent. I was not referring to the whole $100
billion.)
Defense spending was 60.3% of federal government consumption and investment in July through
September 2015.
(Billions of dollars)
$738.3 / $1,224.4 = 60.3%
Defense spending was 23.1% of all government consumption and investment in July through
September 2015.
$738.3 / $3,200.4 = 23.1%
Defense spending was 4.1% of Gross Domestic Product in July through September 2015.
$738.3 / $18,064.7 = 4.1%
djb said in reply to djb...
oh never mind I get it
.25 % is 6 percent of the percent us spends on military
the 40 trillion is the gdp of all the countries
got it
anne said in reply to djb...
"I get it:
.25 % is 6 percent of the percent US spends on military."
So .25 percent of United States GDP for climate change assistance to poor countries is 6 percent
of the amount the US spends on the military.
.0025 x $18,064.7 billion GDP = $45.16 billion on climate change
$45.16 billion on climate change / $738.3 billion on the military = 0.61 or 6.1 percent of
military spending
anne said in reply to anne...
United States climate change assistance to poor countries will be .25 percent of GDP or 6% of
US military spending.
anne said in reply to anne...
What the United States commitment to climate change assistance for poor countries means is spending
about $45.2 billion yearly or .25 percent of GDP. Whether the President can convince Congress
to spend the $45 billion yearly will now have to be answered.
anne said in reply to djb...
"I get it:
.25 % is 6 percent of the [amount] US spends on military."
In Paris Talks, Rich Countries Pledged 0.25 Percent of GDP to Help Poor Countries
In case you were wondering about the importance of a $100 billion a year, * non-binding commitment,
it's roughly 0.25 percent of rich country's $40 trillion annual GDP (about 6 percent of what the
U.S. spends on the military). This counts the U.S., European Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia
as rich countries. If China is included in that list, the commitment would be less than 0.2 percent
of GDP.
(I see my comment on military spending here created a bit of confusion. I was looking at the
U.S. share of the commitment, 0.25 percent of its GDP and comparing it to the roughly 4.0 percent
of GDP it spends on the military. ** That comes to 6 percent. I was not referring to the whole
$100 billion.)
"... Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street reforms and actions Bill Clinton performed as President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of Greenspans record? ..."
"... Its actually pro-neoliberalism crowd vs anti-neoliberalism crowd. In no way anti-neoliberalism commenters here view this is a character melodrama, although psychologically Hillary probably does has certain problems as her reaction to the death of Gadhafi attests. The key problem with anti-neoliberalism crowd is the question What is a realistic alternative? Thats where differences and policy debate starts. ..."
"... Events do not occur in isolation. GLBA increased TBTF in AIG and Citi. TBTF forced TARP. GLBA greased the skids for CFMA. Democrats gained majority, but not filibuster proof, caught between Iraq and a hard place following their votes for TARP and a broader understanding of their participation in the unanimous consent passage of the CFMA, over objection by Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN). ..."
"... It certainly fits the kind of herd mentality that I always saw in corporate Amerika until I retired. The William Greider article posted by RGC was very consistent in its account by John Reed with the details of one or two books written about AIG back in 2009 or so. I dont have time to hunt them up now. Besides, no one would read them anyway. ..."
"... GS was one of several actions taken by the New Deal. That it wasnt sufficient by itself doesnt equate to it wasnt beneficial. ..."
"... "Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," said then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy." ..."
"... The repeal of Glass Steagal was a landmark victory in deregulation that greased the skids for the passage of CFMA once Democrats had been further demoralized by the SCOTUS decision on Bush-v-Gore. The first vote on GLBA was split along party lines, but passed because Republicans had majority and Clinton was willing to sign which was clear from the waiver that had been granted to illegal Citi merger with Travelers. Both Citi and AIG mergers contributed to too big to fail. The CFMA was the nail in the coffin that probably would have never gotten off the ground if Democrats had held the line on the GLBA. Glass-Steagal was insufficient as a regulatory system to prevent the 2008 mortgage crisis, but it was giant as an icon of New Deal financial system reform. Its loss institutionalized too big to fail ..."
"... Gramm Leach Biley was a mistake. But it was not the only failure of US regulatory policies towards financial institutions nor the most important. ..."
"... It was more symbolic caving in on financial regulation than a specific technical failure except for making too big to fail worse at Citi and AIG. It marked a sea change of thinking about financial regulation. Nothing mattered any more, including the CFMA just a little over one year later. Deregulation of derivatives trading mandated by the CFMA was a colossal failure and it is not bizarre to believe that GLBA precipitated the consensus on financial deregulation enough that after the demoralizing defeat of Democrats in Bush-v-Gore then there was no New Deal spirit of financial regulation left. Social development is not just a series of unconnected events. It is carried on a tide of change. A falling tide grounds all boats. ..."
"... We had a financial dereg craze back in the late 1970s and early 1980s which led to the S L disaster. One would have thought we would have learned from that. But then came the dereg craziness 20 years later. And this disaster was much worse. ..."
"... This brings us to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary of the United States and at the time right hand man to then Treasury Security Robert Rubin. Mr. Summers was widely credited with implementation of the aggressive tactics used to remove Ms. Born from her office, tactics that multiple sources describe as showing an old world bias against women piercing the glass ceiling. ..."
"... According to numerous published reports, Mr. Summers was involved in. silencing those who questioned the opaque derivative product's design. ..."
"... The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 0.1 percent tax on stock trades, scaled with lower taxes on other assets, would raise $50 billion a year in tax revenue. The implied reduction in trading revenue was even larger. Senator Sanders has proposed a tax of 0.5 percent on equities (also with a scaled tax on other assets). This would lead to an even larger reduction in revenue for the financial industry. ..."
"... Great to see Bakers acknowledgement that an updated Glass-Steagall is just one component of the progressive wings plan to rein in Wall Street, not the sum total of it. Besides, if Wall Street types dont think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much. ..."
"... Yes thats a good way to look it. Wall Street gave the Democrats and Clinton a lot of campaign cash so that they would dismantle Glass-Steagall. ..."
"... Slippery slope. Ya gotta find me a business of any type that does not protest any kind of regulation on their business. ..."
"... Yeah, but usually because of all the bad things they say will happen because of the regulation. The question is, what do they think of Clintons plan? Ive heard surprisingly little about that, and what I have heard is along these lines: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street-plan/ ..."
"... Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Streets excesses on Thursday. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief. ..."
"... Iceland's government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled "A better monetary system for Iceland". ..."
Hillary Clinton Is Whitewashing the Financial Catastrophe
She has a plan that she claims will reform Wall Street-but she's deflecting responsibility
from old friends and donors in the industry.
By William Greider
Yesterday 3:11 pm
Hillary Clinton's recent op-ed in The New York Times, "How I'd Rein In Wall Street," was intended
to reassure nervous Democrats who fear she is still in thrall to those mega-bankers of New York
who crashed the American economy. Clinton's brisk recital of plausible reform ideas might convince
wishful thinkers who are not familiar with the complexities of banking. But informed skeptics,
myself included, see a disturbing message in her argument that ought to alarm innocent supporters.
Candidate Clinton is essentially whitewashing the financial catastrophe. She has produced a
clumsy rewrite of what caused the 2008 collapse, one that conveniently leaves her husband out
of the story. He was the president who legislated the predicate for Wall Street's meltdown. Hillary
Clinton's redefinition of the reform problem deflects the blame from Wall Street's most powerful
institutions, like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, and instead fingers less celebrated players
that failed. In roundabout fashion, Hillary Clinton sounds like she is assuring old friends and
donors in the financial sector that, if she becomes president, she will not come after them.
The seminal event that sowed financial disaster was the repeal of the New Deal's Glass-Steagall
Act of 1933, which had separated banking into different realms: investment banks, which organize
capital investors for risk-taking ventures; and deposit-holding banks, which serve people as borrowers
and lenders. That law's repeal, a great victory for Wall Street, was delivered by Bill Clinton
in 1999, assisted by the Federal Reserve and the financial sector's armies of lobbyists. The "universal
banking model" was saluted as a modernizing reform that liberated traditional banks to participate
directly and indirectly in long-prohibited and vastly more profitable risk-taking.
Exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit-default swaps flourished, enabling
old-line bankers to share in the fun and profit on an awesome scale. The banks invented "guarantees"
against loss and sold them to both companies and market players. The fast-expanding financial
sector claimed a larger and larger share of the economy (and still does) at the expense of the
real economy of producers and consumers. The interconnectedness across market sectors created
the illusion of safety. When illusions failed, these connected guarantees became the dragnet that
drove panic in every direction. Ultimately, the federal government had to rescue everyone, foreign
and domestic, to stop the bleeding.
Yet Hillary Clinton asserts in her Times op-ed that repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to
do with it. She claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the reckless behavior of institutions
like Lehman Brothers or insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks. Her argument amounts
to facile evasion that ignores the interconnected exposures. The Federal Reserve spent $180 billion
bailing out AIG so AIG could pay back Goldman Sachs and other banks. If the Fed hadn't acted and
had allowed AIG to fail, the banks would have gone down too.
These sound like esoteric questions of bank regulation (and they are), but the consequences
of pretending they do not matter are enormous. The federal government and Federal Reserve would
remain on the hook for rescuing losers in a future crisis. The largest and most adventurous banks
would remain free to experiment, inventing fictitious guarantees and selling them to eager suckers.
If things go wrong, Uncle Sam cleans up the mess.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other reformers are pushing a simpler remedy-restore the Glass-Steagall
principles and give citizens a safe, government-insured place to store their money. "Banking should
be boring," Warren explains (her co-sponsor is GOP Senator John McCain).
That's a hard sell in politics, given the banking sector's bear hug of Congress and the White
House, its callous manipulation of both political parties. Of course, it is more complicated than
that. But recreating a safe, stable banking system-a place where ordinary people can keep their
money-ought to be the first benchmark for Democrats who claim to be reformers.
Actually, the most compelling witnesses for Senator Warren's argument are the two bankers who
introduced this adventure in "universal banking" back in the 1990s. They used their political
savvy and relentless muscle to seduce Bill Clinton and his so-called New Democrats. John Reed
was CEO of Citicorp and led the charge. He has since apologized to the nation. Sandy Weill was
chairman of the board and a brilliant financier who envisioned the possibilities of a single,
all-purpose financial house, freed of government's narrow-minded regulations. They won politically,
but at staggering cost to the country.
Weill confessed error back in 2012: "What we should probably do is go and split up investment
banking from banking. Have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's
not going to be too big to fail."
John Reed's confession explained explicitly why their modernizing crusade failed for two fundamental
business reasons. "One was the belief that combining all types of finance into one institution
would drive costs down-and the larger institution the more efficient it would be," Reed wrote
in the Financial Times in November. Reed said, "We now know that there are very few cost efficiencies
that come from the merger of functions-indeed, there may be none at all. It is possible that combining
so much in a single bank makes services more expensive than if they were instead offered by smaller,
specialised players."
The second grave error, Reed said, was trying to mix the two conflicting cultures in banking-bankers
who are pulling in opposite directions. That tension helps explain the competitive greed displayed
by the modernized banking system. This disorder speaks to the current political crisis in ways
that neither Dems nor Republicans wish to confront. It would require the politicians to critique
the bankers (often their funders) in terms of human failure.
"Mixing incompatible cultures is a problem all by itself," Reed wrote. "It makes the entire
finance industry more fragile…. As is now clear, traditional banking attracts one kind of talent,
which is entirely different from the kinds drawn towards investment banking and trading. Traditional
bankers tend to be extroverts, sociable people who are focused on longer term relationships. They
are, in many important respects, risk averse. Investment bankers and their traders are more short
termist. They are comfortable with, and many even seek out, risk and are more focused on immediate
reward."
Reed concludes, "As I have reflected about the years since 1999, I think the lessons of Glass-Steagall
and its repeal suggest that the universal banking model is inherently unstable and unworkable.
No amount of restructuring, management change or regulation is ever likely to change that."
This might sound hopelessly naive, but the Democratic Party might do better in politics if
it told more of the truth more often: what they tried do and why it failed, and what they think
they may have gotten wrong. People already know they haven't gotten a straight story from politicians.
They might be favorably impressed by a little more candor in the plain-spoken manner of John Reed.
Of course it's unfair to pick on the Dems. Republicans have been lying about their big stuff
for so long and so relentlessly that their voters are now staging a wrathful rebellion. Who knows,
maybe a little honest talk might lead to honest debate. Think about it. Do the people want to
hear the truth about our national condition? Could they stand it?
"She claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the reckless behavior of institutions
like Lehman Brothers or insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks."
Of course this claim is absolutely true. Just like GS would not have affected the other investment
banks, whatever their name was. And just like we would have had to bail out those other banks
whatever their name was.
Peter K. -> EMichael...
Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street "reforms" and actions Bill Clinton performed
as President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains
tax? Are you aware of Greenspan's record?
Yes Hillary isn't Bill but she hasn't criticized her husband specifically about his record and
seems to want to have her cake and eat it too.
Of course Hillary is much better than the Republicans, pace Rustbucket and the Green Lantern Lefty
club. Still, critics have a point.
I won't be surprised if she doesn't do much to rein in Wall Street besides some window dressing.
sanjait -> Peter K....
"Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street "reforms" and actions Bill Clinton
performed..."
That, right there, is what's wrong with Bernie and his fans. They measure everything by whether
it is "pro- or anti- Wall Street". Glass Steagall is anti-Wall Street. A financial transactions
tax is anti-Wall Street. But neither has any hope of controlling systemic financial risk in this
country. None.
You guys want to punish Wall Street but not even bother trying to think of how to achieve useful
policy goals. Some people, like Paine here, are actually open about this vacuity, as if the only
thing that were important were winning a power struggle.
Hillary's plan is flat out better. It's more comprehensive and more effective at reining in
the financial system to limit systemic risk. Period.
You guys want to make this a character melodrama rather than a policy debate, and I fear the
result of that will be that the candidate who actually has the best plan won't get to enact it.
likbez -> sanjait...
"You guys want to make this a character melodrama rather than a policy debate, and I
fear the result of that will be that the candidate who actually has the best plan won't get
to enact it."
You are misrepresenting the positions. It's actually pro-neoliberalism crowd vs anti-neoliberalism
crowd. In no way anti-neoliberalism commenters here view this is a character melodrama, although
psychologically Hillary probably does has certain problems as her reaction to the death of Gadhafi
attests. The key problem with anti-neoliberalism crowd is the question "What is a realistic alternative?"
That's where differences and policy debate starts.
RGC -> EMichael...
"Her argument amounts to facile evasion"
Fred C. Dobbs -> RGC...
'The majority favors policies to the left of Hillary.'
... The Democrats' liberal faction has been greatly overestimated by pundits who mistake noisiness
for clout or assume that the left functions like the right. In fact, liberals hold nowhere near
the power in the Democratic Party that conservatives hold in the Republican Party. And while they
may well be gaining, they're still far from being in charge. ...
Paine -> RGC...
What's not confronted ? Suggest what a System like the pre repeal system would have done in
the 00's. My guess we'd have ended in a crisis anyway. Yes we can segregate the depository system.
But credit is elastic enough to build bubbles without the depository system involved
EMichael -> Paine ...
Exactly.
Most people think of lending like the Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan still exists.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael...
Don't be such a whistle dick. Just because you cannot figure out why GLBA made such an impact
that in no way means that people that do understand are stupid. See my posted comment to RGC on
GLBA just down thread for an more detailed explanation including a linked web article. No, GS
alone would not have prevented the mortgage bubble, but it would have lessened TBTF and GS stood
as icon, a symbol of financial regulation. Hell, if we don't need GS then why don't we just allow
unregulated derivatives trading? Who cares, right? Senators Byron Dorgan, Barbara Boxer, Barbara
Mikulski, Richard Shelby, Tom Harkin, Richard Bryan, Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders all voted
against GLBA to repeal GS for some strange reason and Dorgan made a really big deal out of it
at the time. I doubt everyone on that list of Senators was just stupid because they did not see
it your way.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael...
I ran all out of ceteris paribus quite some time ago. Events do not occur in isolation. GLBA
increased TBTF in AIG and Citi. TBTF forced TARP. GLBA greased the skids for CFMA. Democrats gained
majority, but not filibuster proof, caught between Iraq and a hard place following their votes
for TARP and a broader understanding of their participation in the unanimous consent passage of
the CFMA, over "objection" by Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN). We
have had a Republican majority in the House since the 2010 election and now they have the Senate
as well. If you are that sure that voters just choose divided government, then aren't we better
off to have a Republican POTUS and Democratic Congress?
sanjait -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
"I ran all out of ceteris paribus quite some time ago. Events do not occur in isolation.
GLBA increased TBTF in AIG and Citi. TBTF forced TARP. GLBA greased the skids for CFMA. "
I know you think this is a really meaningful string that evidences causation, but it just looks
like you are reaching, reaching, reaching ...
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> sanjait...
Maybe. No way to say for sure. It certainly fits the kind of herd mentality that I always
saw in corporate Amerika until I retired. The William Greider article posted by RGC was very consistent
in its account by John Reed with the details of one or two books written about AIG back in 2009
or so. I don't have time to hunt them up now. Besides, no one would read them anyway.
I am voting for whoever wins the Democratic nomination for POTUS. Bernie without a like-minded
Congress would not do much good. But when we shoot each other down here at EV without offering
any agreement or consideration that we might not be 100% correct, then that goes against Doc Thoma's
idea of an open forum. Granted, with my great big pair then I am willing to state my opinion with
no consideration for validation or acceptance, but not everyone has that degree of a comfort zone.
Besides, I am so old an cynical that shooting down the overdogs that go after the underdogs is
one of the few things that I still care about.
RGC -> Paine ...
GS was one of several actions taken by the New Deal. That it wasn't sufficient by itself doesn't
equate to it wasn't beneficial.
Glass-Steagall: Warren and Sanders bring it back into focus
Madonna Gauding / May 13, 2015
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are putting a new focus on the Glass-Steagall
Act, which was, unfortunately, repealed in 1999 and led directly to the financial crises we have
faced ever since. Here's a bit of history of this legislative debacle from an older post on Occasional
Planet published several years ago :
On November 4, 1999, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) took to the floor of the senate to make an
impassioned speech against the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, (alternately known as Gramm Leach
Biley, or the "Financial Modernization Act") Repeal of Glass-Steagall would allow banks to merge
with insurance companies and investments houses. He said "I want to sound a warning call today
about this legislation, I think this legislation is just fundamentally terrible."
According to Sam Stein, writing in 2009 in the Huffington Post, only eight senators voted against
the repeal. Senior staff in the Clinton administration and many now in the Obama administration
praised the repeal as the "most important breakthrough in the world of finance and politics in
decades"
According to Stein, Dorgan warned that banks would become "too big to fail" and claimed that
Congress would "look back in a decade and say we should not have done this." The repeal of Glass
Steagall, of course, was one of several bad policies that helped lead to the current economic
crisis we are in now.
Dorgan wasn't entirely alone. Sens. Barbara Boxer, Barbara Mikulski, Richard Shelby, Tom Harkin,
Richard Bryan, Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders also cast nay votes. The late Sen. Paul Wellstone
opposed the bill, and warned at the time that Congress was "about to repeal the economic stabilizer
without putting any comparable safeguard in its place."
Democratic Senators had sufficient knowledge about the dangers of the repeal of Glass Steagall,
but chose to ignore it. Plenty of experts warned that it would be impossible to "discipline" banks
once the legislation was passed, and that they would get too big and complex to regulate. Editorials
against repeal appeared in the New York Times and other mainstream venues, suggesting that if
the new megabanks were to falter, they could take down the entire global economy, which is exactly
what happened. Stein quotes Ralph Nader who said at the time, "We will look back at this and wonder
how the country was so asleep. It's just a nightmare."
According to Stein:
"The Senate voted to pass Gramm-Leach-Bliley by a vote of 90-8 and reversed what was, for
more than six decades, a framework that had governed the functions and reach of the nation's
largest banks. No longer limited by laws and regulations commercial and investment banks could
now merge. Many had already begun the process, including, among others, J.P. Morgan and Citicorp.
The new law allowed it to be permanent. The updated ground rules were low on oversight and
heavy on risky ventures. Historically in the business of mortgages and credit cards, banks
now would sell insurance and stock.
Nevertheless, the bill did not lack champions, many of whom declared that the original legislation
- forged during the Great Depression - was both antiquated and cumbersome for the banking industry.
Congress had tried 11 times to repeal Glass-Steagall. The twelfth was the charm.
"Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since
the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century," said then-Treasury
Secretary Lawrence Summers. "This historic legislation will better enable American companies
to compete in the new economy."
"I welcome this day as a day of success and triumph," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.).
"The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown," said Sen.
Bob Kerrey, (D-Neb.).
"If we don't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai
becoming the financial capital of the world," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "There are many
reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain
competitive."
Unfortunately, the statement by Chuck Schumer sounds very much like it was prepared by a lobbyist.
This vote underscores the way in which our elected officials are so heavily swayed by corporate
and banking money that our voices and needs become irrelevant. It is why we need publicly funded
elections. Democratic senators, the so-called representatives of the people, fell over themselves
to please their Wall Street donors knowing full well there were dangers for the country at large,
for ordinary Americans, in repealing Glass-Steagall.
It is important to hold Democratic senators (along with current members of the Obama administration)
accountable for the significant role they have played in the current economic crisis that has
caused so much suffering for ordinary Americans. In case you were wondering, the current Democratic
Senators who voted yes to repeal the Glass-Steagall act are the following:
Daniel Akaka – Max Baucus – Evan Bayh – Jeff Bingaman – Kent Conrad – Chris Dodd – Dick Durbin
– Dianne Feinstein – Daniel Inouye – Tim Johnson – John Kerry – Herb Kohl – Mary Landrieu – Frank
Lautenberg – Patrick Leahy – Carl Levin – Joseph Lieberman – Blanche Lincoln – Patty Murray –
Jack Reed – Harry Reid – Jay Rockefeller – Chuck Schumer – Ron Wyden
Former House members who voted for repeal who are current Senators.
Mark Udall [as of 2010] – Debbie Stabenow – Bob Menendez – Tom Udall -Sherrod Brown
No longer in the Senate, or passed away, but who voted for repeal:
Joe Biden -Ted Kennedy -Robert Byrd
These Democratic senators would like to forget or make excuses for their enthusiastic vote
on the repeal of Glass Steagall, but it is important to hold them accountable for helping their
bank donors realize obscene profits while their constituents lost jobs, savings and homes. And
it is important to demand that they serve the interests of the American people.
*
[The repeal of Glass Steagal was a landmark victory in deregulation that greased the skids
for the passage of CFMA once Democrats had been further demoralized by the SCOTUS decision on
Bush-v-Gore. The first vote on GLBA was split along party lines, but passed because Republicans
had majority and Clinton was willing to sign which was clear from the waiver that had been granted
to illegal Citi merger with Travelers. Both Citi and AIG mergers contributed to too big to fail.
The CFMA was the nail in the coffin that probably would have never gotten off the ground if Democrats
had held the line on the GLBA. Glass-Steagal was insufficient as a regulatory system to prevent
the 2008 mortgage crisis, but it was giant as an icon of New Deal financial system reform. Its
loss institutionalized too big to fail.]
pgl -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
Gramm Leach Biley was a mistake. But it was not the only failure of US regulatory policies
towards financial institutions nor the most important. I think that is what Hillary Clinton
is saying.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> pgl...
It was more symbolic caving in on financial regulation than a specific technical failure except
for making too big to fail worse at Citi and AIG. It marked a sea change of thinking about financial
regulation. Nothing mattered any more, including the CFMA just a little over one year later. Deregulation
of derivatives trading mandated by the CFMA was a colossal failure and it is not bizarre to believe
that GLBA precipitated the consensus on financial deregulation enough that after the demoralizing
defeat of Democrats in Bush-v-Gore then there was no New Deal spirit of financial regulation left.
Social development is not just a series of unconnected events. It is carried on a tide of change.
A falling tide grounds all boats.
pgl -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
We had a financial dereg craze back in the late 1970's and early 1980's which led to the S&L
disaster. One would have thought we would have learned from that. But then came the dereg craziness
20 years later. And this disaster was much worse.
I don't care whether Hillary says 1999
was a mistake or not. I do care what the regulations of financial institutions will be like going
forward.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> pgl...
I cannot disagree with any of that.
sanjait -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
"Deregulation of derivatives trading mandated by the CFMA was a colossal failure and it
is not bizarre to believe that GLBA precipitated the consensus"
Yeah, it is kind of bizarre to blame one bill for a crisis that occurred largely because another
bill was passed, based on some some vague assertion about how the first bill made everyone think
crazy.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> sanjait...
Democrats did not vote for GLBA until after reconciliation between the House and Senate bills.
Democrats were tossed a bone in the Community Reinvestment Act financing provisions and given
that Bill Clinton was going to sign anyway and that Republicans were able to pass the bill without
a single vote from Democrats then all but a few Democrats bought in. They could not stop it, so
they just bought into it. I thought there was supposed to be an understanding of behaviorism devoted
to understanding the political economy. For that matter Republicans did not need Democrats to
vote for the CFMA either, but they did. That gave Republicans political cover for whatever went
wrong later on. No one with a clue believed things would go well from the passage of either of
these bills. It was pure Wall Street driven kleptocracy.
likbez -> sanjait...
It was not one bill or another. It was a government policy to get traders what they want.
"As the western world wakes to the fact it is in the middle of a debt crisis spiral, intelligent
voices are wondering how this manifested itself? As we speak, those close to the situation could
be engaging in historical revisionism to obfuscate their role in the design of faulty leverage
structures that were identified in the derivatives markets in 1998 and 2008. These same design
flaws, first identified in 1998, are persistent today and could become graphically evident in
the very near future under the weight of a European debt crisis.
Author and Bloomberg columnist William Cohan chronicles the fascinating start of this historic
leverage implosion in his recent article Rethinking Robert Rubin. Readers may recall it was Mr.
Cohan who, in 2004, noted leverage issues that ultimately imploded in 2007-08.
At some point, market watchers will realize the debt crisis story will literally change the
world. They will look to the root cause of the problem, and they might just find one critical
point revealed in Mr. Cohan's article.
This point occurs in 1998 when then Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ChairwomanBrooksley
Born identified what now might be recognized as core design flaws in leverage structure used in
Over the Counter (OTC) transactions. Ms. Born brought her concerns public, by first asking just
to study the issue, as appropriate action was not being taken. She issued a concept release paper
that simply asked for more information. "The Commission is not entering into this process with
preconceived results in mind," the document reads.
Ms. Born later noted in, the PBS Frontline documentary on the topic speculation at the CFTC
was the unregulated OTC derivatives were opaque, the risk to the global economy could not be determined
and the risk was potentially catastrophic. As a result of this inquiry, Ms. Born was ultimately
forced from office.
This brings us to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary of the United States and
at the time right hand man to then Treasury Security Robert Rubin. Mr. Summers was widely credited
with implementation of the aggressive tactics used to remove Ms. Born from her office, tactics
that multiple sources describe as showing an old world bias against women piercing the glass ceiling.
According to numerous published reports, Mr. Summers was involved in. silencing those who questioned
the opaque derivative product's design. "
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> Paine ...
TBTF on steroids, might as well CFMA - why not?
Bubbles with less TBTF and a lot less credit
default swaps would have been a lot less messy going in. Without TARP, then Congress might have
still had the guts for making a lesser New Deal.
EMichael -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
TARP was window dressing. The curtain that covered up the FED's actions.
pgl -> RGC...
Where have I heard about William Greider? Oh yea - this critique of something stupid he wrote
about a Supreme Court decision:
"Exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit-default swaps flourished, enabling
old-line bankers to share in the fun and profit on an awesome scale."
These would have flourished even if Glass-Steagall remained on the books. Leave it to RGC to
find some critic of HRC who knows nothing about financial markets.
RGC -> pgl...
Derivatives flourished because of the other deregulation under Clinton, the CFMA. The repeal of
GS helped commercial banks participate.
RGC -> pgl...
The repeal of GS helped commercial banks participate.
Fred C. Dobbs -> pgl...
Warren Buffet used to rail about how risky derivative investing is, until he realized they
are *extremely* important in the re-insurance biz, which is a
big part of Berkshire Hathaway.
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Cracking Down on Wall Street
by Dean Baker
Published: 12 December 2015
The New Yorker ran a rather confused piece on Gary Sernovitz, a managing director at the investment
firm Lime Rock Partners, on whether Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would be more effective
in reining in Wall Street. The piece assures us that Secretary Clinton has a better understanding
of Wall Street and that her plan would be more effective in cracking down on the industry. The
piece is bizarre both because it essentially dismisses the concern with too big to fail banks
and completely ignores Sanders' proposal for a financial transactions tax which is by far the
most important mechanism for reining in the financial industry.
The piece assures us that too big to fail banks are no longer a problem, noting their drop
in profitability from bubble peaks and telling readers:
"not only are Sanders's bogeybanks just one part of Wall Street but they are getting less
powerful and less problematic by the year."
This argument is strange for a couple of reasons. First, the peak of the subprime bubble frenzy
is hardly a good base of comparison. The real question is should we anticipate declining profits
going forward. That hardly seems clear. For example, Citigroup recently reported surging profits,
while Wells Fargo's third quarter profits were up 8 percent from 2014 levels.
If Sernovitz is predicting that the big banks are about to shrivel up to nothingness, the market
does not agree with him. Citigroup has a market capitalization of $152 billion, JPMorgan has a
market cap of $236 billion, and Bank of America has a market cap of $174 billion. Clearly investors
agree with Sanders in thinking that these huge banks will have sizable profits for some time to
come.
The real question on too big to fail is whether the government would sit by and let a Goldman
Sachs or Citigroup go bankrupt. Perhaps some people think that it is now the case, but I've never
met anyone in that group.
Sernovitz is also dismissive on Sanders call for bringing back the Glass-Steagall separation
between commercial banking and investment banking. He makes the comparison to the battle over
the Keystone XL pipeline, which is actually quite appropriate. The Keystone battle did take on
exaggerated importance in the climate debate. There was never a zero/one proposition in which
no tar sands oil would be pumped without the pipeline, while all of it would be pumped if the
pipeline was constructed. Nonetheless, if the Obama administration was committed to restricting
greenhouse gas emissions, it is difficult to see why it would support the building of a pipeline
that would facilitate bringing some of the world's dirtiest oil to market.
In the same vein, Sernovitz is right that it is difficult to see how anything about the growth
of the housing bubble and its subsequent collapse would have been very different if Glass-Steagall
were still in place. And, it is possible in principle to regulate bank's risky practices without
Glass-Steagall, as the Volcker rule is doing. However, enforcement tends to weaken over time under
industry pressure, which is a reason why the clear lines of Glass-Steagall can be beneficial.
Furthermore, as with Keystone, if we want to restrict banks' power, what is the advantage of letting
them get bigger and more complex?
The repeal of Glass-Steagall was sold in large part by boasting of the potential synergies
from combining investment and commercial banking under one roof. But if the operations are kept
completely separate, as is supposed to be the case, where are the synergies?
But the strangest part of Sernovitz's story is that he leaves out Sanders' financial transactions
tax (FTT) altogether. This is bizarre, because the FTT is essentially a hatchet blow to the waste
and exorbitant salaries in the industry.
Most research shows that trading volume is very responsive to the cost of trading, with most
estimates putting the elasticity close to one. This means that if trading costs rise by 50 percent,
then trading volume declines by 50 percent. (In its recent analysis of FTTs, the Tax Policy Center
assumed that the elasticity was 1.5, meaning that trading volume decline by 150 percent of the
increase in trading costs.) The implication of this finding is that the financial industry would
pay the full cost of a financial transactions tax in the form of reduced trading revenue.
The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 0.1 percent tax on stock trades, scaled with lower taxes
on other assets, would raise $50 billion a year in tax revenue. The implied reduction in trading
revenue was even larger. Senator Sanders has proposed a tax of 0.5 percent on equities (also with
a scaled tax on other assets). This would lead to an even larger reduction in revenue for the
financial industry.
It is incredible that Sernovitz would ignore a policy with such enormous consequences for the
financial sector in his assessment of which candidate would be tougher on Wall Street. Sanders
FTT would almost certainly do more to change behavior on Wall Street then everything that Clinton
has proposed taken together by a rather large margin. It's sort of like evaluating the New England
Patriots' Super Bowl prospects without discussing their quarterback.
Syaloch -> Peter K....
Great to see Baker's acknowledgement that an updated Glass-Steagall is just one component
of the progressive wing's plan to rein in Wall Street, not the sum total of it. Besides, if Wall
Street types don't think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they
expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much.
Peter K. -> Syaloch...
Yes that's a good way to look it. Wall Street gave the Democrats and Clinton a lot of campaign
cash so that they would dismantle Glass-Steagall. If they want it done, it's probably not
a good idea.
EMichael -> Syaloch...
Slippery slope. Ya' gotta find me a business of any type that does not protest any kind of regulation
on their business.
Syaloch -> EMichael...
Yeah, but usually because of all the bad things they say will happen because of the regulation.
The question is, what do they think of Clinton's plan? I've heard surprisingly little about that,
and what I have heard is along these lines:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street-plan/
"Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street's excesses on Thursday.
The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief."
pgl -> Syaloch...
Two excellent points!!!
sanjait -> Syaloch...
"Besides, if Wall Street types don't think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful
effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too
much."
It has an effect of shrinking the size of a few firms, and that has a detrimental effect on
the top managers of those firms, who get paid more money if they have larger firms to manage. But it has little to no meaningful effect on systemic risk.
So if your main policy goal is to shrink the compensation for a small number of powerful Wall
Street managers, G-S is great. But if you actually want to accomplish something useful to the American people, like limiting
systemic risk in the financial sector, then a plan like Hillary's is much much better. She explained
this fairly well in her recent NYT piece.
Paine -> Peter K....
There is absolutely NO question Bernie is for real. Wall Street does not want Bernie. So they'll
let Hillary talk as big as she needs to . Why should we believe her when an honest guy like
Barry caved once in power
Paine -> Paine ...
Bernie has been anti Wall Street his whole career . He's on a crusade. Hillary is pulling a sham
bola
Paine -> Paine ...
Perhaps too often we look at Wall Street as monolithic whether consciously or not. Obviously we
know it's no monolithic: there are serious differences
When the street is riding high especially. Right now the street is probably not united but
too cautious to display profound differences in public. They're sitting on their hands waiting
to see how high the anti Wall Street tide runs this election cycle. Trump gives them cover and
I really fear secretly Hillary gives them comfort
This all coiled change if Bernie surges. How that happens depends crucially on New Hampshire.
Not Iowa
EMichael -> Paine ...
If Bernie surges and wins the nomination, we will all get to watch the death of the Progressive
movement for a decade or two. Congress will become more GOP dominated, and we will have a President
in office who will make Hoover look like a Socialist.
You should like the moderate Democrats after George McGovern ran in 1972. I'm hoping we have another
1964 with Bernie leading a united Democratic Congress.
EMichael -> pgl...
Not a chance in the world. And I like Sanders much more than anyone else. It just simply cannot,
and will not, happen. He is a communist. Not to me, not to you, but to the vast majority
of American voters.
pgl -> EMichael...
He is not a communist. But I agree - Hillary is winning the Democratic nomination. I have only
one vote and in New York, I'm badly outnumbered.
ilsm -> Paine ...
I believe Hillary will be to liberal causes after she is elected as LBJ was to peace in Vietnam.
Like Bill and Obomber.
pgl -> ilsm...
By 1968, LBJ finally realized it was time to end that stupid war. But it seems certain members
in the State Department undermined his efforts in a cynical ploy to get Nixon to be President.
The Republican Party has had more slime than substance of most of my life time.
pgl -> Peter K....
Gary Sernovitz, a managing director at the investment firm Lime Rock Partners? Why are we listening
to this guy too. It's like letting the fox guard the hen house.
sanjait -> Peter K....
"The piece is bizarre both because it essentially dismisses the concern with too big to
fail banks and completely ignores Sanders' proposal for a financial transactions tax which
is by far the most important mechanism for reining in the financial industry."
This is just wrong. Is financial system risk in any way correlated with the frequency
of transactions? Except for market volatility from HFT ... no. The financial crisis wasn't caused
by a high volume of trades. It was caused by bad investments into highly illiquid assets. Again,
great example of wanting to punish Wall Street but not bothering to think about what actually
works.
Peter K. said...
Robert Reich to the Fed: this is not the time to raise rates.
Iceland, too, is looking at a radical transformation of its money
system, after suffering the crushing boom/bust cycle of the private banking model that bankrupted
its largest banks in 2008. According to a March 2015 article in the UK Telegraph:
Iceland's government is considering a revolutionary monetary proposal – removing the power
of commercial banks to create money and handing it to the central bank. The proposal, which would
be a turnaround in the history of modern finance, was part of a report written by a lawmaker from
the ruling centrist Progress Party, Frosti Sigurjonsson, entitled "A better monetary system for
Iceland".
"The findings will be an important contribution to the upcoming discussion, here and elsewhere,
on money creation and monetary policy," Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson said. The
report, commissioned by the premier, is aimed at putting an end to a monetary system in place
through a slew of financial crises, including the latest one in 2008.
Under this "Sovereign Money" proposal, the country's central bank would become the only creator
of money. Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments and would serve as intermediaries
between savers and lenders. The proposal is a variant of the Chicago Plan promoted by Kumhof and
Benes of the IMF and the Positive Money group in the UK.
Public Banking Initiatives in Iceland, Ireland and the UK
A major concern with stripping private banks of the power to create money as deposits when
they make loans is that it will seriously reduce the availability of credit in an already sluggish
economy. One solution is to make the banks, or some of them, public institutions. They would still
be creating money when they made loans, but it would be as agents of the government; and the profits
would be available for public use, on the model of the US Bank of North Dakota and the German
Sparkassen (public savings banks).
In Ireland, three political parties – Sinn Fein, the Green Party and Renua Ireland (a new party)
- are now supporting initiatives for a network of local publicly-owned banks on the Sparkassen
model. In the UK, the New Economy Foundation (NEF) is proposing that the failed Royal Bank of
Scotland be transformed into a network of public interest banks on that model. And in Iceland,
public banking is part of the platform of a new political party called the Dawn Party.
December 11, 2015
Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador
"Banks would continue to manage accounts and payments and would serve as intermediaries between
savers and lenders."
OK but that means they issue bank accounts which of course we call deposits.
So is this just semantics? People want checking accounts. People want savings accounts. Otherwise
they would not exist. Iceland plans to do what to stop the private sector from getting what it
wants?
I like the idea of public banks. Let's nationalize JPMorganChase so we don't have to listen
to Jamie Dimon anymore!
sanjait -> pgl...
I don't know for sure (not bothering to search and read the referenced proposals), but I assumed
the described proposal was for an end to fractional reserve banking. Banks would have to have
full reserves to make loans. Or something. I could be wrong about that.
Syaloch said...
Sorry, but Your Favorite Company Can't Be Your Friend
To think that an artificial person, whether corporeal or corporate, can ever be your friend
requires a remarkable level of self-delusion.
A commenter on the Times site aptly quotes Marx in response:
"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal,
idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to
his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked
self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious
fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical
calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless
indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade.
In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted
naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked
up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet,
the man of science, into its paid wage labourers."
"... The American Neocons are Zionists (Their goal is expanding political / military power. Initially this is focused on the state of Israel.) ..."
"... Obviously , if Zionism is synonymous with patriotism in Israel, it cannot be an acceptable label in American politics, where it would mean loyalty to a foreign power. This is why the neoconservatives do not represent themselves as Zionists on the American scene. Yet they do not hide it all together either. ..."
"... He points out dual-citizen (Israel / USA) members and self proclaimed Zionists throughout cabinet level positions in the US government, international banking and controlling the US military. In private writings and occasionally in public, Neocons admit that America's war policies are actually Israel's war goals. (Examples provided.) ..."
"... American Jewish Committee ..."
"... Contemporary Jewish Record ..."
"... If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find horrifying . And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants' grandchildren ..."
"... Goyenot traces the Neocon's origins through its influential writers and thinkers. Highest on the list is Leo Strauss. (Neocons are sometimes called "the Straussians.") Leo Strauss is a great admirer of Machiavelli with his utter contempt for restraining moral principles making him "uniquely effective," and, "the ideal patriot." He gushes over Machiavelli praising the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech. ..."
"... believes that Truth is harmful to the common man and the social order and should be reserved for superior minds. ..."
"... nations derive their strength from their myths , which are necessary for government and governance. ..."
"... national myths have no necessary relationship with historical reality: they are socio-cultural constructions that the State has a duty to disseminate . ..."
"... to be effective, any national myth must be based on a clear distinction between good and evil ; it derives its cohesive strength from the hatred of an enemy nation. ..."
"... deception is the norm in political life ..."
"... Office of Special Plans ..."
"... The Zionist/Neocons are piggy-backing onto, or utilizing, the religious myths of both the Jewish and Christian world to consolidate power. This is brilliant Machiavellian strategy. ..."
"... the "chosen people" myth (God likes us best, we are better than you) ..."
"... the Holy Land myth (one area of real estate is more holy than another) ..."
"... General Wesley Clark testified on numerous occasions before the cameras, that one month after September 11th, 2001 a general from the Pentagon showed him a memo from neoconservative strategists "that describes how we're gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran". ..."
"... Among them are brilliant strategists ..."
"... They operate unrestrained by the most basic moral principles upon which civilization is founded. They are undisturbed by compassion for the suffering of others. ..."
"... They use consciously and skillfully use deception and "myth-making" to shape policy ..."
"... They have infiltrated the highest levels of banking, US military, NATO and US government. ..."
Mememonkey pointed my to a 2013 essay by Laurent Guyenot, a French historian and writer on the
deep state, that addresses the question of
"Who Are The Neoconservatives."
If you would like to know about that group that sends the US military into battle and tortures prisoners
of war in out name, you need to know about these guys.
First, if you are Jewish, or are a GREEN Meme, please stop and take a deep breath. Please
put on your thinking cap and don't react. We are NOT disrespecting a religion, spiritual practice
or a culture. We are talking about a radical and very destructive group hidden within
a culture and using that culture. Christianity has similar groups and movements--the
Crusades, the KKK, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, etc.
My personal investment: This question has been a subject of intense interest for me since I
became convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, that the Iraq war was waged for reasons entirely different
from those publically stated. I have been horrified to see such a shadowy, powerful group operating
from a profoundly "pre-moral" developmental level-i.e., not based in even the most
rudimentary principles of morality foundational to civilization.
Who the hell are these people?!
Goyenot's main points (with a touch of personal editorializing):
1. The American Neocons are Zionists (Their goal is expanding political / military power.
Initially this is focused on the state of Israel.)
Neoconservativism is essentially a modern right wing Jewish version of Machiavelli's political
strategy. What characterizes the neoconservative movement is therefore not as much Judaism
as a religious tradition, but rather Judiasm as a political project, i.e. Zionism,
by Machiavellian means.
This is not a religious movement though it may use religions words and vocabulary.
It is a political and military movement. They are not concerned with being close to God.
This is a movement to expand political and military power. Some are Christian and Mormon, culturally.
Obviously , if Zionism is synonymous with patriotism in Israel, it cannot be an acceptable
label in American politics, where it would mean loyalty to a foreign power. This is why the
neoconservatives do not represent themselves as Zionists on the American scene. Yet they do
not hide it all together either.
He points out dual-citizen (Israel / USA) members and self proclaimed Zionists throughout cabinet
level positions in the US government, international banking and controlling the US military.
In private writings and occasionally in public, Neocons admit that America's war policies are actually
Israel's war goals. (Examples provided.)
2. Most American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal and do NOT share the perspective
of the radical Zionists.
The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative")
Republican right, is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of
the monthly magazine Commentary, a media arm of the American Jewish Committee,
which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward, the oldest
American Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: "If there
is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism
is it. It's a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find
horrifying. And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born
among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants'
grandchildren".
3. Intellectual Basis and Moral developmental level
Goyenot traces the Neocon's origins through its influential writers and thinkers. Highest
on the list is Leo Strauss. (Neocons are sometimes called "the Straussians.") Leo Strauss
is a great admirer of Machiavelli with his utter contempt for restraining moral principles making
him "uniquely effective," and, "the ideal patriot." He gushes over Machiavelli praising the
intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech.
Other major points:
believes that Truth is harmful to the common man and the social order and should be reserved
for superior minds.
nations derive their strength from their myths, which are necessary for
government and governance.
national myths have no necessary relationship with historical reality:
they are socio-cultural constructions that the State has a duty to disseminate.
to be effective, any national myth must be based on a clear distinction between
good and evil; it derives its cohesive strength from the hatred of an enemy nation.
As recognized by Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt in an article "Leo Strauss and the World
of Intelligence" (1999), for Strauss, "deception is the norm in political life" –
the rule they [the Neocons] applied to fabricating the lie of weapons of mass destruction
by Saddam Hussein when working inside the Office of Special Plans.
George Bushes speech from the national cathedral after 9/11 exemplifies myth-making at its
finest: "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid
the world of Evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation
is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. . . .[W]e ask almighty God to watch over our nation,
and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. . . . And may He always guide our country.
God bless America.
4. The Zionist/Neocons are piggy-backing onto, or utilizing, the religious myths of
both the Jewish and Christian world to consolidate power. This is brilliant Machiavellian strategy.
the "chosen people" myth (God likes us best, we are better than you)
the Holy Land myth (one area of real estate is more holy than another)
the second coming of Christ myth
the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth through global destruction/war (nuclear war for
the Glory of God)
[The]Pax Judaica will come only when "all the nations shall flow" to the Jerusalem
temple, from where "shall go forth the law" (Isaiah 2:1-3). This vision of a new world
order with Jerusalem at its center resonates within the Likudnik and neoconservative
circles. At the Jerusalem Summit, held from October 12th to 14th, 2003 in the symbolically significant
King David Hotel, an alliance was forged between Zionist Jews and Evangelical Christians around
a "theopolitical" project, one that would consider Israel… "the key to the harmony of civilizations",
replacing the United Nations that's become a "a tribalized confederation hijacked by Third
World dictatorships": "Jerusalem's spiritual and historical importance endows it
with a special authority to become a center of world's unity. [...] We believe
that one of the objectives of Israel's divinely-inspired rebirth is to make
it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace
and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets". Three acting Israeli ministers spoke at the summit,
including Benjamin Netanyahu, and Richard Perle.
Jerusalem's dream empire is expected to come through the nightmare of world war. The prophet
Zechariah, often cited on Zionist forums, predicted that the Lord will fight "all nations" allied
against Israel. In a single day, the whole earth will become a desert, with the exception
of Jerusalem, who "shall remain aloft upon its site" (14:10).
With more than 50 millions members, Christians United for Israel is
a major political force in the U.S.. Its Chairman, pastor John Haggee, declared: "The
United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's
plan for both Israel and the West, [...] a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran,
which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ".
And Guyenot concludes:
Is it possible that this biblical dream, mixed with the neo-Machiavellianism of Leo Strauss and
the militarism of Likud, is what is quietly animating an exceptionally determined and organized ultra-Zionist
clan? General Wesley Clark testified on numerous occasions before the cameras, that one month after
September 11th, 2001 a general from the Pentagon showed him a memo from neoconservative strategists
"that describes how we're gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and
then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran".
Is it just a coincidence
that the "seven nations" doomed to be destroyed by Israel form part of the biblical myths?
…[W]hen Yahweh will deliver Israel "seven nations greater and mightier than yourself […] you must
utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them."
My summary:
We have a group that wishes greatly expanded power (to rule the world??)
Among them are brilliant strategists
They operate unrestrained by the most basic moral principles upon which civilization is founded.
They are undisturbed by compassion for the suffering of others.
They use consciously and skillfully use deception and "myth-making" to shape policy
This is not a spiritual movement in any sense
They are utilizing religious myths and language to influence public thinking
They envision "winning" in the aftermath world war.
They have infiltrated the highest levels of banking, US military, NATO and US government.
"... Goldman Sachs buzz-acronym BRICS are five of the largest exporters of hot money . It amuses me to no end how so many buy the idea that the BRICS are gonna take over the world... ..."
"... Better definitions would have black money correspond to any government/public spending, declared capital and proceeds from violent crime (i.e. money that is acquired through or enables violence) and honest money to all the undeclared savings, underground economy/trade proceeds and non-institutional drug money. ..."
"... the most of China money leaves through HK do you think HK is a dump ? ..."
"... Over the years I have written several brief explanations of how offshore havens work. The one at the link below covers the basic-basics reasonably well. http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2013/01/offshore-tax-havens-what-they-do.html ..."
"... once again, we see banksters and corrupt corporate sector players colluding with corrupt individuals and assorted criminals - many inside .gov itself - to move ill-gotten gains to safer places out of reach of law enforcement in their own countries. ..."
"... Banksters facilitate virtually every financial crime. ..."
Every year, roughly $1 trillion flows illegally out of developing and emerging economies due to
crime, corruption, and tax evasion. This amount is more than these countries receive in foreign direct
investment and foreign aid combined.
This week, a new report was released that highlights the latest data available on this "hot" money.
Assembled by Global Financial Integrity, a research and advisory organization based in Washington,
DC, the report details illicit financial flows of money from developing countries using the latest
information available, which is up until the end of 2013.
The cumulative amount of this "hot money" coming out of developing countries totaled just
over $7.8 trillion between 2004 and 2013. On an annual basis, it breached the $1 trillion
mark each of the last three years of data available, which is good for a growth rate of 6.5% rate
annually.
In Asia, illicit financial outflows are growing even quicker at an 8.6% clip. It's also
on the continent that five of the ten largest source economies for these flows can be found, including
the largest offender, which is Mainland China.
How does this "hot" money leave these countries? Global Financial Integrity has
calculated that 83% of illicit financial flows are due to what it calls "trade misinvoicing".
It's defined as the following:
The misinvoicing of trade is accomplished by misstating the value or volume of an export or
import on a customs invoice. Trade misinvoicing is a form of trade-based money laundering
made possible by the fact that trading partners write their own trade documents, or arrange to
have the documents prepared in a third country (typically a tax haven), a method known as re-invoicing.
Fraudulent manipulation of the price, quantity, or quality of a good or service on an invoice
allows criminals, corrupt government officials, and commercial tax evaders to shift vast amounts
of money across international borders quickly, easily, and nearly always undetected.
Trade misinvoicing accounted for an average of $654.7 billion per year of lost trade in
developing markets over the data set covered by the report.
Goldman Sachs buzz-acronym "BRICS" are five of the largest exporters of "hot money". It
amuses me to no end how so many buy the idea that the BRICS are gonna take over the world...
What the fuck is "illicit" money? Savings that weren't looted away?
Better definitions would have "black" money correspond to any government/public spending,
declared capital and proceeds from violent crime (i.e. money that is acquired through or enables
violence) and honest money to all the undeclared savings, underground economy/trade proceeds and
non-institutional drug money.
avenriv
the most of China money leaves through HK do you think HK is a dump ?
did you ever leave your small town ?
38BWD22
I found Hong Kong rather nice some 20 years ago, Beijing not so much.
We just came back from India.
So, yes, I have been to four of those BRICS, and am not impressed. Sorry.
Feel free to tell me more though. Especially about your travels. ;)
BarnacleBill
As a (retired) tax-haven professional in three countries, and a former Manager of the Cayman
Islands Chamber of Commerce, I must caution against the term "mis-invoicing" - with or without
the hyphen...More properly, it's re-invoicing, and no more illicit than the procedure by which
any trader buys goods at one price and sells them at another.
When a corporate buyer is owned by the same people as own the seller, their transaction may
raise an eyebrow or two, but usually it would be permitted by the published taxation laws of all
the relevant companies, as those laws are interpreted by both private-sector lawyers and the tax
authorities. With transactions of that kind, it is beneficial for the owners if the tax-rates
are different in the two jurisdictions. Well, of course; but that situation is always - always
- allowed by the laws of those jurisdictions, whether they are developed or developing.
"Every year, roughly $1 trillion flows illegally out of developing and emerging economies
due to crime, corruption, and tax evasion"
Yea, that would be banksterz, CIA and their drug running, NGO's and their child trafficking.......
etc... Might want to throw a few more zero's in there too.
Bob who runs the deli down the street and pockets $500 "illicit" dollars a week is not your worry
or concern you stupid fuckkkerz.
zeroboris
The Russian central bank every year publishes a report of how many billions of dollars have
stolen from our economy, and... does nothing, nothing at all to stop this.
smacker
There are good arguments to say that what people do with their own money is nothing to do with
.gov.
But once again, we see banksters and corrupt corporate sector players colluding with corrupt
individuals and assorted criminals - many inside .gov itself - to move ill-gotten gains to safer
places out of reach of law enforcement in their own countries.
Banksters facilitate virtually every financial crime.
"There is no reason for central banks to have the kind of independence that judicial
institutions have. Justice may be blind and above politics, but money and banking are not." Economic
and politics are like Siamese twins (which actually . If somebody trying to separate them it is a
clear sign that the guy is either neoliberal propagandists or outright crook.
Notable quotes:
"... I think FED chairman is the second most powerful political position in the USA after the POTUS. Or may be in some respects it is even the first ;-) So it is quintessentially high-power political position masked with the smokescreen of purely economic (like many other things are camouflaged under neoliberalism.) ..."
"... I think that is a hidden principle behind attacks on FED chair. A neoliberal principle that the state should not intrude into economics and limit itself to the police, security, defense, law enforcement and few other related to this functions. So their point that she overextended her mandate is an objection based on principle. Which can be violated only if it is used to uphold neoliberalism, as Greenspan did during his career many times. ..."
"... This kind of debate seems to be a by-product of the contemporary obsession with having an independent central bank, run according to the fantasy that there is such a thing as a neutral or apolitical way to conduct monetary policy. ..."
"... A number of commenters and authors have recently pointed out that inequality may not just be an unrelated phenomenon to monetary policy, but actually, in part at least, a byproduct of it. ..."
"... The theory is that the Fed in the Great Moderation age has been so keen to stave off even the possibility of inflation that it chokes down the vigor of recoveries before they get to the part where median wages start rising quickly. The result is that wages get ratcheted down with the economic cycle, falling during recessions and never fully recovering during the recoveries. ..."
"... Two Things: (i) The Fed should be open and honest about monetary policy. No one wants to return to the Greenspan days. (ii) Brad Delong is a neoliberal hack. ..."
"... As to why risk a political backlash in the piece, the short answer is: to invoke the debate on whether politics or fact (science) is going to dominate. Because they can't both. See: Romer. Let's have this out once and for all. ..."
Fine column, with which I agree. Federal Reserve policy as such is difficult and contentious enough
to avoid wandering to social-economic analysis or philosophy from aspects of the Fed mandate.
As for the use of the word "hack" in referring to Janet Yellen, that needlessly insulting use
was by a Washington Post editor and not by columnist Michael Strain.
anne -> RW (the other)...
As Brad notes, many Fed Chairs before Yellen have opined on matters outside monetary policy
so why is Yellen subject to a different standard?
[ Fine, I have reconsidered and agree. No matter how the headline was written, the headline
was meant to be intimidating and was willfully mean and that could and should have been made clear
immediately by the writer of the column. ]
likbez -> anne...
"Federal Reserve policy as such is difficult and contentious enough to avoid wandering to social-economic
analysis or philosophy from aspects of the Fed mandate."
Anne,
I think FED chairman is the second most powerful political position in the USA after the POTUS.
Or may be in some respects it is even the first ;-) So it is quintessentially high-power political position masked with the smokescreen of "purely
economic" (like many other things are camouflaged under neoliberalism.)
That's why Greenspan got it, while being despised by his Wall-Street colleagues...
He got it because he was perfect for promoting deregulation political agenda from the position
of FED chair.
pgl -> likbez...
Greenspan was despised on Wall Street? Wow as he tried so hard to serve their interests. I
guess the Wall Street crowd is never happy no matter how much income we feed these blow hards.
anne -> likbez...
So it is quintessentially high-power political position masked with the smokescreen of "purely
economic" (like many other things are camouflaged under neoliberalism.)
[ I understand, and am convinced. ]
Peter K. said...
I respectfully disagree. Republicans are always working the refs and despite what the writer
from AEI said, they're okay with conservative Fed chairs talking politics. They have double standards.
Greenspan testified to Congress on behalf of Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Something about
how since Clinton balanced the budget, the financial markets had too little safe debt to work
with. (maybe that's why they dove into mortgaged-backed securities). But tax cuts versus more
government spending? He and Rubin advised Clinton to drop his middle class spending bill and trade
deficit reduction for lower interest rates. That's economics which have political outcomes.
So if the rightwing is going to work the the refs, so should the left. We shouldn't unilaterally
disarm over fears Congress will gun for the Fed. There should be more groups like Fed Up protesting.
The good thing about Yellen's speech is that it's a signal to progressives that inequality
is problem for her even as she is raising rates in a political dance with hawks and Congress.
The Fed is constantly accused of increasing inequality so it's good Yellen is saying she thinks
it's a bad thing and not American.
Bernie Sanders is right that for change to happen we'll need more political involvement from
regular citizens. We'll need a popular movement with many leaders.
The Fed should be square in the sights of a progressive movement. A high-pressured economy
with full employment should be a top priority.
Instead I saw Nancy Pelosi being interviewed by Al Hunt on Charlie Rose the other night. Hunt
asked her about Yellen raising rates.
Pelosi said no comment as she wasn't looking at the data Yellen was and didn't want to interfere.
The Fed should be independent, etc. Perhaps like Thoma she has the best of motives and doesn't
want to motivate the Republicans to go after the Fed and oppose what she wants.
Still I felt the Democratic leadership should be committed to a high-pressure economy. Her
staff should know what Krugman, Summers etc are saying. What the IMF and World Bank are sayings.
She should have said "they shouldn't raise rates until they see the whites of inflation's eyes"
as Krugman memorably put it. She should have said that emphatically.
We need a Democratic Party like that.
Instead Peter Diamond is blocked from becoming a Fed governor by Republicans and Pelosi is
afraid to comment on monetary policy.
Must-Read: I would beg the highly-esteemed Mark Thoma to draw a distinction here between "inappropriate"
and unwise. In my view, it is not at all inappropriate for Fed Chair Janet Yellen to express her
concern about excessive inequality. Previous Fed Chairs, after all, have expressed their liking
for inequality as an essential engine of economic growth over and over again over the past half
century--with exactly zero critical snarking from the American Enterprise Institute for trespassing
beyond the boundaries of their role.
But that it is not inappropriate for Janet Yellen to do so does not mean that it is wise. Mark's
argument is, I think, that given the current political situation it is unwise for Janet to further
incite the ire of the nutboys in the way that even the mildest expression of concern about rising
inequality will do.
That may or may not be true. I think it is not.
But I do not think that bears on my point that Michael R. Strain's arguments that Janet Yellen's
speech on inequality was inappropriate are void, wrong, erroneous, inattentive to precedent, shoddy,
expired, expired, gone to meet their maker, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing up the daisies,
kicked the bucket, shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleeding
choir invisible:
Mark Thoma: Why It's Tricky for Fed Officials to Talk Politically: "I think I disagree with
Brad DeLong...
pgl -> Peter K....
"my point that Michael R. Strain's arguments that Janet Yellen's speech on inequality
was inappropriate are void, wrong, erroneous..."
DeLong is exactly right here. Strain's argument has its own share of partisan lies whereas
Yellen is telling the truth. Brad will not be intimidated by this AEI weasel.
sanjait said...
Why would Yellen not talk about inequality? It's an important macroeconomic topic and one that
is relevant for her job. It's both an input and an output variable that is related to monetary
policy.
And, arguably I think, median wage growth should be regarded as a policy goal for the Fed,
related to its explicit mandate of "maximum employment."
But even if you think inequality is unrelated to the Fed's policy goals, that doesn't stop
them from talking about other topics. Do people accuse the Fed of playing politics when they talk
about desiring reduced financial market volatility? That has little to do with growth, employment
and general price stability.
likbez -> sanjait...
I think that is a hidden principle behind attacks on FED chair. A neoliberal principle that the state should not intrude into economics and limit itself to
the police, security, defense, law enforcement and few other related to this functions. So their point that she overextended her mandate is an objection based on principle. Which
can be violated only if it is used to uphold neoliberalism, as Greenspan did during his career
many times.
Sandwichman said...
I think I disagree with Mark Thoma's disagreement with Brad DeLong. Actually, ALL economic
discourse is political and efforts to restrain the politics are inevitably efforts to keep the
politics one-sided
Dan Kervick said...
This kind of debate seems to be a by-product of the contemporary obsession with having
an "independent" central bank, run according to the fantasy that there is such a thing as a neutral
or apolitical way to conduct monetary policy.
But there really isn't. Different kinds of social, economic and political values and policy
agendas are going to call for different kinds monetary and credit policies. It might be better
for our political health if the Fed were administratively re-located as an executive branch agency
that is in turn part of a broader Department of Money and Banking - no different from the Departments
of Agriculture, Labor, Education, etc. In that case everybody would then view Fed governors as
ordinary executive branch appointees who report to the President, and whose policies are naturally
an extension of the administration's broader agenda. Then if people don't like the monetary policies
that are carried out, that would be one factor in their decision about whom to vote for.
There is no reason for central banks to have the kind of independence that judicial institutions
have. Justice may be blind and above politics, but money and banking are not. Decisions in that
latter area should be no more politics-free than decisions about taxing and spending. If we fold
the central bank more completely into the regular processes of representative government, then
if a candidate wants to run on a platform of keeping interest rates low, small business credit
easy, bank profits small, etc., they could do so without all of the doubletalk about the protecting
the independence of the sacrosanct bankers' temple.
We could also then avoid unproductive wheel-spinning about that impossibly vague and hedged
Fed mandate that can be stretched to mean almost anything people want it to mean. The Fed's mandate
under the political solution would just be whatever monetary policy the President ran on.
likbez -> Dan Kervick...
"The Fed's mandate under the political solution would just be whatever monetary policy
the President ran on"
Perfect !
Actually sanjait in his post made a good point why this illusive goal is desirable (providing
"electoral advantage") although Greenspan probably violated this rule. A couple of hikes of interest
rates from now till election probably will doom Democrats.
Also the idea of FEB independence went into overdrive since 80th not accidentally. It has its
value in enhancing the level of deregulation.
Among other things it helps to protect large financial institutions from outright nationalization
in cases like 2008.
Does somebody in this forum really think that Bernanke has an option of putting a couple of
Wall-Street most violent and destructive behemoths into receivership (in other words nationalize
them) in 2008 without Congress approval ?
Dan Kervick -> Sanjait ...
Sanjait, with due respect, you are not really responding to the reform proposal, but only
affirming the differences between that proposal and the current system.
Yes, of course fiscal policy is "constrained" by Congress. Indeed, it is not just constrained by
Congress but actually made by Congress, subject only to an overridable executive branch veto. The
executive branch is responsible primarily for carrying out the legislature's fiscal directives.
That's the point. In a democratic system decisions about all forms of taxation and government
spending are supposed to be made by the elected legislative branch, and then executed by agencies
of the executive branch. My proposal is that monetary policy should be handled in the same way:
by the elected political branches of the government.
You point out that under current arrangements, central banks can, if they choose, effect large
monetary offsets to fiscal policy (or at least to some of the aggregate macroeconomic effects of
those policies). I don't understand why any non-elected and politically unaccountable branch of
our government should have the power to offset the policies of the elected branches in this way.
Fiscal and monetary policy need to be yoked together to achieve policy ends effectively. Those
policy ends should be the ones people vote for, not the ones a handful of men and women happen to
think are appropriate.
JF -> Dan Kervick...
"In a democratic system" is what you wrote.
It is more proper to refer to it as republicanism. The separation of powers doctrine, underlying
the US constitution, is a reflection of James Madison's characterization in the 51st The
Federalist Paper, and it is a US-defined republicanism that is almost unique:
"the republican form, wherein the legislative authority necessarily predominates."
- or something like that is the quote.
In the US framers' view, at least those who constructed the re-write in 1787 and were the leaders
- I'd say the most important word in Madison's explanation is the word "necessarily" - this
philosophy has all law and policy stemming from the public, it presumes that you can't have
stability and dynamic change of benefit to society without this.
Arguably, aristocracies, fascists, totalitarians, and all the other isms, just don't see it that
way, they see things as top-down ordering of society.
The mythology of the monetary theorizing and the notions about a central bank being independently
delphic has some of this top-down ordering view to it (austerianism, comes to mind). Well, I
don't believe in a religious sense that this is how it should be, nor do you it seems.
It will be an interesting Congress in 2017 when new legislative authorities are enacted to
establish clearer framing of the ministerial duties now held by the FRB.
Are FED officials scared that this will happen, and as a result they circle the wagons with their
associates in the financial community now to fend off the public????
I hope this is not true. They can allay their own fears by leading not back toward 1907, in my
opinion.
Of course, I could say where I'd like economic policies to go, and do here often, but this thread
is about Yellin and other FED officials.
I recognize that FRB officials can say things too, and should, as leaders of this nation (with a
whole lot of research power and evidence available to them their commentary on political
economics should have merit and be influential).
Thanks for continuing to remind people that we govern ourselves in the US in a US-defined
republican-form. But I think the people still respect and listen to leadership - so speak out FED
officials.
JF -> Dan Kervick...
But Dan K, then you'd de-mythologize an entire wing of macroeconomics in a wing referred to as
monetary theory based on a separate Central Bank, or some non-political theory of money.
Don't mind the theory as it is an analytic framework that questions and sometimes informs - but
it is good to step back and realize some of the religious-like framing.
It is political-economy.
Peter K. -> pgl...
Yellen really lays it out in her speech.
"The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern
me. The past several decades have seen the most sustained rise in inequality since the 19th
century after more than 40 years of narrowing inequality following the Great Depression. By
some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred
years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of
American history before then.2 It is no secret that the past few decades of widening
inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top
and stagnant living standards for the majority. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this
trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value
Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity."
And even links to Piketty in footnote 42.
"Along with other economic advantages, it is likely that large inheritances play a role in
the fairly limited intergenerational mobility that I described earlier.42"
42. This topic is discussed extensively in Thomas Piketty (2014), Capital in the 21st Century,
trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press). Return to text
Sanjait said...
A number of commenters and authors have recently pointed out that inequality may not just
be an unrelated phenomenon to monetary policy, but actually, in part at least, a byproduct of it.
The theory is that the Fed in the Great Moderation age has been so keen to stave off even the
possibility of inflation that it chokes down the vigor of recoveries before they get to the part
where median wages start rising quickly. The result is that wages get ratcheted down with the
economic cycle, falling during recessions and never fully recovering during the recoveries.
Do I believe this theory? Increasingly, yes I do. And seeing the Fed right now decide to raise
rates, citing accelerating wage growth as one of the main reasons, has reinforced my belief.
A Boy Named Sue said...
Two Things: (i) The Fed should be open and honest about monetary policy. No one wants to
return to the Greenspan days. (ii) Brad Delong is a neoliberal hack.
A Boy Named Sue -> A Boy Named Sue...
I do admit, Delong is my favorite conservative economist. He is witty and educational, unlike
most RW hacks.
Jeff said...
As to "why risk a political backlash" in the piece, the short answer is: to invoke the
debate on whether politics or fact (science) is going to dominate. Because they can't both. See:
Romer. Let's have this out once and for all.
"... By James Stafford, Editor in Chief of OilPrice. Originally published at OilPrice ..."
"... • How far the Russia-Turkey spat can go economically ..."
"... • The fallout effects for countries caught in between ..."
"... • What Russia wants ..."
"... • What Turkey wants ..."
"... • What other geopolitical purposes ISIS serves ..."
"... • Why ISIS can't be controlled ..."
"... • How Shi'ite radical groups differ ..."
"... • Why we're looking at a possible remapping of a significant part of the energy arena ..."
"... • Why we shouldn't listen to billionaire buffoons ..."
"... Larger picture of what's really going on with Turkey's intentions driven by Ergodan, Bensh's correct description of Ergo's character and flaws, and less explicitly stated US (he says "west") 1/2 ass efforts to defeat IS despite US leaders (from WH to Congress) emphatic claims otherwise… ..."
"... "Coupled with unparalleled levels of socioeconomic insecurity, Sunni marginalization produced a real social base whose attraction to ISIS goes beyond religious or ideological factors." ..."
"... ISIS may project a utopic promise of stability and prosperity, but this is far from the reality on the ground. We can be absolutely certain that it will experience its own internal revolts, as similarly declarative examples of Islamic "states" have faced in the past. ..."
"... Yet, from the point of view of Washington, a geostrategic problem lingered: how to break the Tehran-Damascus alliance. And ultimately, how to break the Tehran-Moscow alliance. ..."
"... The "Assad must go" obsession in Washington is a multi-headed hydra. It includes breaking a Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria alliance (now very much in effect as the "4+1" alliance, including Hezbollah, actively fighting all strands of Salafi Jihadism in Syria). But it also includes isolating energy coordination among them, to the benefit of the Gulf petrodollar clients/vassals linked to US energy giants. ..."
"... Thus Washington's strategy so far of injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a pre-planed op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the endgame being regime change in Damascus. ..."
"... Of course Turkey is the wild card – Erdogan is increasingly looking like he might be the spark that sets off a much larger conflict. To answer the question, I think there are a lot of really bad scenarios that could happen here, and they are a lot closer than people think (Turkey shutting down the Bosphorus, for starters.) ..."
"... It is way past time for the arrogant stupidity of Washington's neoconservatives to be exposed and for them to at a minimum be removed from the levers of power – if not tried for crimes against humanity. And that includes Obama if he is really one of them, i.e. if he believes in anything but the politics of power. ..."
"... Specifically with respect to Syria, it looks like about the best the 'West' (i.e. the US and its vassals) can hope for is some pipeline arrangement providing Europe with an alternative, a competing supplier for its energy needs. In exchange, the 'West' can agree to end its economic war against Russia, Iran et.al and get back to the business of business, i.e. exporting something other than debt and bombs. ..."
"... I remember reading years ago that the rise of the AKP, and the rising standard of living with it, was fueled directly by a large stream of cash that was funneled from the House of Saud. ..."
"... The interest must be paid… ..."
"... I think the waffling on ISIS is due to their location among Sunnis. The US would like to win Sunnis over, so they're cautious about bombing, which of course is to ISIS' advantage. ..."
"... From where I sit, the Syria conflict is an important part of a much larger one – between the 'West' and Russia. Things have been heating up again in the Ukraine. Biden gave a speech there just a couple of days ago in which he insisted that 'NATO would not rest until Crimea was returned to the Ukraine.' That's not going to happen without a war. ..."
By James Stafford, Editor in Chief of OilPrice. Originally published at
OilPrice
...No one can fight a war without oil, according to Robert Bensh, partner
and managing director of
Pelicourt LLC oil and gas company. But while the politically unhinged are coming out the woodwork,
the more important aspects of this story remain elusive to the public. Is the dangerously unspoken
theory that ISIS is a bulwark against Iran what's keeping the West from tackling the Islamic State
wholeheartedly on its territory?
... ... ...
In an exclusive interview with James Stafford of Oilprice.com, Bensh discusses:
• How far the
Russia-Turkey spat can go economically • The fallout effects for countries caught in between • What Russia wants • What Turkey wants • What other geopolitical purposes ISIS serves • Why ISIS can't be controlled • How Shi'ite radical groups differ • Why we're looking at a possible remapping of a significant part of the energy arena • Why we shouldn't listen to billionaire buffoons
... ... ...
Robert Bensh: Russia and Turkey have a great deal of economic interdependence, and
nowhere more than in the energy sector. There has been no talk of cutting Russian gas to Turkey,
and I don't see how Russia can afford this right now. Turkey is not only a significant customer for
Russia, but it's also a key gas-transit point.
James Stafford: So what does Turkey
want?
Robert Bensh: The better question is: "What does Erdogan want?" You know, Putin's
probably not too far off in his statement referring to Erdogan's loss of "mind and reason". Erdogan
has been going down this path little by little for some time and it's no secret that he has some
megalomaniacal tendencies that grow more and more out of control every year. It would seem that he
has dreams of a return of the Ottoman Empire-and that ISIS could be a logical ally to that end. Of
course, ISIS is not likely looking to be beholden to another Ottoman Empire controlling a greater
Sunni-Arab dominion. Many, many Turks fail to share this dream with their leader, and his ambitions
will also be his eventual downfall unfortunately.
For the Turkish regime, there is also the idea that ISIS will ostensibly give them more power
against the rise of the Kurds, both in southeastern Turkey and in northern Syria. It will even raise
the Turks' status in the face of the Saudis whose oil wealth has make them more powerful than the
Turks in many ways.
Jim McKay
Yves: I think your "quibble" is… indeed minor.
Larger picture of what's really going on with Turkey's intentions driven by Ergodan, Bensh's
correct description of Ergo's character and flaws, and less explicitly stated US (he says "west")
1/2 ass efforts to defeat IS despite US leaders (from WH to Congress) emphatic claims otherwise…
These are realities. Whatever small portion of US electorate reads here, at least a few are
being introduced to this. We are heading into another election with… in my view, more deeply entrenched
public opinions on this based on lies, then maybe any time I recall my entire life. It's just,
the game is bigger now with more potential for longer lasting catastrophe if we don't find a way
to right our ship.
I appreciate this article… it's on the right track. Only other thing I'd mention: amidst all
this, we've had recent international climate meetings with little progress. Clearly, this is bigger
problem for entire planet that nobody will escape. I'm stuck by Bensh's comments on protecting
their investments (oil) and how the various players he mentions all make decisions based on… oil.
It over rides, it seems…everything else that matters.
The planet needs to get behind renewables, and develop them… fast. It's not so hard to see
how doing so would change these other geo-political games forever.
financial matters
I think taking the 'businessman' look at this is not a bad way to look at it. As Adam Hanieh
has pointed out
"Coupled with unparalleled levels of socioeconomic insecurity, Sunni marginalization
produced a real social base whose attraction to ISIS goes beyond religious or ideological factors."
and also
"ISIS may project a utopic promise of stability and prosperity, but this is far from
the reality on the ground. We can be absolutely certain that it will experience its own internal
revolts, as similarly declarative examples of Islamic "states" have faced in the past.
Despite all the setbacks of the last few years, the potential growth of a genuinely
left alternative has not been extinguished and, most importantly, has never been more necessary."
--
William Polk echoes this idea of the importance of a non-military and non-police response.
"–The results of insurgency are described in my book Violent Politics. There I have shown that
in a variety of societies over the last two centuries in various parts of Africa, Asia and Europe,
guerrillas have nearly always accomplished their objectives despite even the most draconian counterinsurgency
tactics."
His point being that dealing with the fundamental socioeconomic imbalances/repression can be
more effective.
Eureka Springs
Interesting to me as much for what is not considered by oil businessmen.
A few quick points:
No mention of human suffering, not even in cost/opportunity terms.
No mention of rule of law.
No mention of what happens to the earths climate/ecosystem if all the oil and gas at stake
is unleashed.
No mention of who many of the business players are, certainly not in detail. No mention
of Erdogans family, Tony Hayward, trafficking / selling this stolen oil…
Nor mention of Israel being the major end buyer.
When mentioning Assad buys oil from IS (U.S Turk Israel Saudi Qatari Qaeda Nusra) no mention
of the point Assad is buying his countries own oil at the point of a gun from the thieves who
stole it.
No mention that this uncertainty/chaos is both deliberate and a constant feature of big
oil and MIC's business model.
No concern that more tyrants of the head chopping variety are bound to achieve or maintain
power.
cassandra
…and
No mention of strategic significance of naval base at Tartus
No mention of "legal" Saudi arms purchasing and trafficking, and extremist support in Syria,
Yemen and about the globe.
Brooklin Bridge
This is a good interview. Along with other posts on the subject, this is bringing a little
clarity to why there is no clarity.
participant-observer-observed
Hmmm. No mention of Saudi and others in the dynamic…
"Yet, from the point of view of Washington, a geostrategic problem lingered: how to break
the Tehran-Damascus alliance. And ultimately, how to break the Tehran-Moscow alliance.
The "Assad must go" obsession in Washington is a multi-headed hydra. It includes breaking
a Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria alliance (now very much in effect as the "4+1" alliance, including Hezbollah,
actively fighting all strands of Salafi Jihadism in Syria). But it also includes isolating energy
coordination among them, to the benefit of the Gulf petrodollar clients/vassals linked to US energy
giants.
Thus Washington's strategy so far of injecting the proverbial Empire of Chaos logic into
Syria; feeding the flames of internal chaos, a pre-planed op by the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
with the endgame being regime change in Damascus."
participant-observer-observed
Yes, thanks for that
most recent Escobar piece at Counterpunch; the one i linked above is already old but still
interesting.
The regime change recipe of DC has already been tried and has failed in Iraq, Libya, etc.,
no one can fathom any improvements replacing Assad + Isis with Isis alone, aka rag tag coalitions
of jihadis! Even Saudis can hardly wish for it.
ChrisFromGeorgia
Based on reported facts on the ground (well, reported by non-US media that is) the SAA is making
slow but steady progress in retaking key towns and the highway between Aleppo and Damascus. No
doubt Russian air and logistical support has made a difference.
If things keep going this way, Assad will likely regain the upper hand and the Saudi/US sponsored
jihadis will be confined to the eastern part of the country. It's looking like Washington will
have to make a choice – accept Assad as the legitimate ruler (for now) or continue to provoke
the situation with guerrilla tactics. We know from history that there is precedent for long wars
against legitimate governments that displease Washington (see Daniel Ortega, Sandanistas.) My
guess is they go this route and hope to eventually install a stooge.
Of course Turkey is the wild card – Erdogan is increasingly looking like he might be the
spark that sets off a much larger conflict. To answer the question, I think there are a lot of
really bad scenarios that could happen here, and they are a lot closer than people think (Turkey
shutting down the Bosphorus, for starters.)
Steven
It is way past time for the arrogant stupidity of Washington's neoconservatives to be exposed
and for them to at a minimum be removed from the levers of power – if not tried for crimes against
humanity. And that includes Obama if he is really one of them, i.e. if he believes in anything
but the politics of power.
This 'Arrogance of Power' has characterized US foreign policy making since the end of WWII.
The U.N. was sold to the public as an arrangement for collective security so the U.S. would not
have to 'make the world safe for democracy' (sic) a third time. It has been in reality nothing
more than a tool for the pursuit of (perceived) US interests, promptly discarded when the principles
in its charter became inconvenient.
Short of initiating the world's Mutually Assured Destruction, the U.S. is running out of options
– in Syria and around the world. It may be too late for the U.S. to get serious about collective
security, to tell the world 'this time we really mean it'. Having squandered economic and "too
good to waste" military power in a successive string of needless wars, it may no longer be possible
to convince especially those who hold the levers of power in Russia and China that we are serious
about collective security and willing to accept a multi-polar world.
Specifically with respect to Syria, it looks like about the best the 'West' (i.e. the US
and its vassals) can hope for is some pipeline arrangement providing Europe with an alternative,
a competing supplier for its energy needs. In exchange, the 'West' can agree to end its economic
war against Russia, Iran et.al and get back to the business of business, i.e. exporting something
other than debt and bombs.
kgw
I remember reading years ago that the rise of the AKP, and the rising standard of living
with it, was fueled directly by a large stream of cash that was funneled from the House of Saud.
The interest must be paid…
susan the other
This was really to the point, without actually making it. One thing is becoming clear – the
oil wars are distilling down to natural advantage. It currently belongs to SA – but the future
looks like it prefers to use Levant & east Mediterranean oil because it will be easier to pipe
to southern Europe. And maybe cleaner? So everybody and their dog is fighting for access to it.
It explains Netanyahu's trip to Moscow & the French clearly in league with Russia for achieving
access to this resource (why else?). And it is partly being driven by decisions to leave current
oil reserves in the ground. As Palast said it is a "war for no oil."
Which in turn makes sense of Kerry's admonishing the Senate about the Iran deal – that if they
want to continue to be oil brokers (petrodollar brokers) they have to come to terms with Iran
because there are plenty of other nations who can step up; and of course we want our EU cousins
to get a cut of Levant oil, and etc. And Russia is clearly protecting its oil interests. I wonder
how long this feeding frenzy will continue.
Horatio Parker
I think the waffling on ISIS is due to their location among Sunnis. The US would like to
win Sunnis over, so they're cautious about bombing, which of course is to ISIS' advantage.
tgs
From where I sit, the Syria conflict is an important part of a much larger one – between
the 'West' and Russia. Things have been heating up again in the Ukraine. Biden gave a speech there
just a couple of days ago in which he insisted that 'NATO would not rest until Crimea was returned
to the Ukraine.' That's not going to happen without a war.
"... lawmaker Oleh Barna walked over to him with a bunch of red roses and then grabbed him around the waist and groin, lifting him off his feet and dragging him from the rostrum. ..."
&
Fighting broke out in parliament among members of Ukraine's
ruling coalition on Friday after a member of President Petro
Poroshenko's bloc physically picked up Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk
and pulled him from the podium.
Yatseniuk was defending his embattled
government's record when
lawmaker Oleh Barna walked over to him with a bunch of red roses and then
grabbed him around the waist and groin, lifting him off his feet and
dragging him from the rostrum.
Members of Yatseniuk's People Front party waded in, pushing Barna and throwing punches, sparking a brawl in the assembly.
Ukraine's parliament has indefinitely postponed a vote of
no-confidence in the government of Arseniy Yatseniuk, but not without
highlighting the fragility of the country's pro-western coalition.
Citing a flurry of corruption scandals and the lacklustre pace of
reforms, an increasing number of MPs - even within the ruling majority
- have in recent weeks called for the ousting of Mr Yatseniuk via a
no-confidence vote on Friday.
Ukraine's western backers, namely the US and EU, feared
such a move could plunge the war-torn and recession-ravaged country
into a deep political crisis as it continues to battle
Russian-backed separatists in eastern regions - and jeopardise a $40bn
international bailout led by the International Monetary Fund.
Such concerns are believed to have been expressed by US
vice president Joe Biden in closed door discussions during a
visit to Kiev early this week in which he publicly called for
political unity, swifter reforms and deeper anti-corruption efforts.
Instead, the IMF is backing Ukrainian policy, its
kleptocracy and its Right Sector leading the attacks that
recently cut off Crimea's electricity. The only condition on which the
IMF insists is continued austerity. Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia,
has fallen by a third this years, pensions have been slashed (largely
as a result of being inflated away), while corruption continues
unabated.
Despite this the IMF announced its intention to extend new
loans to finance Ukraine's dependency and payoffs to the oligarchs who
are in control of its parliament and justice departments to block any
real cleanup of corruption.
For over half a year there was a semi-public discussion with U.S.
Treasury advisors and Cold Warriors about how to stiff Russia on the
$3 billion owed by Ukraine to Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund. There
was some talk of declaring this an "odious debt," but it was decided
that this ploy might backfire against U.S. supported dictatorships.
In the end, the IMF simply lent Ukraine the money.
By doing so, it
announced its new policy: "We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to
US allies." This means that what was simmering as a
Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of
the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other
pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S.
financial and military orbit.
"... Most publicly traded U.S. companies reward top managers for hitting performance targets, meant to tie the interests of managers and shareholders together. At many big companies, those interests are deemed to be best aligned by linking executive performance to earnings per share, along with measures derived from the company's stock price. ..."
"... But these metrics may not be solely a reflection of a company's operating performance. They can be, and often are, influenced through stock repurchases. In addition to cutting the number of a company's shares outstanding, and thus lifting EPS, buybacks also increase demand for the shares, usually providing a lift to the share price, which affects other performance markers. ..."
"... Pay for performance as it is often structured creates "very troublesome, problematic incentives that can potentially drive very short-term thinking." ..."
"... As reported in the first article in this series, share buybacks by U.S. non-financial companies reached a record $520 billion in the most recent reporting year. A Reuters analysis of 3,300 non-financial companies found that together, buybacks and dividends have surpassed total capital expenditures and are more than double research and development spending. ..."
"... "There's been an over-focus on buybacks and raising EPS to hit share option targets, and we know that those are concentrated in the hands of the few, and that the few is in the top 1 percent," said James Montier, a member of the asset allocation team at global investment firm GMO in London, which manages more than $100 billion in assets. ..."
"... The introduction of performance targets has been a driver of surging executive pay, helping to widen the gap between the richest in America and the rest of the country. Median CEO pay among companies in the S P 500 increased to a record $10.3 million last year, up from $8.6 million in 2010, according to data firm Equilar. ..."
"... At those levels, CEOs last year were paid 303 times what workers in their industries earned, compared with a ratio of 59 times in 1989, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit. ..."
NEW YORK(Reuters) - When health insurer Humana Inc reported worse-than-expected quarterly earnings
in late 2014 – including a 21 percent drop in net income – it softened the blow by immediately telling
investors it would make a $500 million share repurchase.
In addition to soothing shareholders, the surprise buyback benefited the company's senior executives.
It added around two cents to the company's annual earnings per share, allowing Humana to surpass
its $7.50 EPS target by a single cent and unlocking higher pay for top managers under terms of the
company's compensation agreement.
Thanks to Humana hitting that target, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Broussard earned a $1.68 million
bonus for 2014.
Most publicly traded U.S. companies reward top managers for hitting performance targets, meant
to tie the interests of managers and shareholders together. At many big companies, those interests
are deemed to be best aligned by linking executive performance to earnings per share, along with
measures derived from the company's stock price.
But these metrics may not be solely a reflection of a company's operating performance. They
can be, and often are, influenced through stock repurchases. In addition to cutting the number of
a company's shares outstanding, and thus lifting EPS, buybacks also increase demand for the shares,
usually providing a lift to the share price, which affects other performance markers.
As corporate America engages in an unprecedented buyback binge, soaring CEO pay tied to short-term
performance measures like EPS is prompting criticism that executives are using stock repurchases
to enrich themselves at the expense of long-term corporate health, capital investment and employment.
"We've accepted a definition of performance that is narrow and quite possibly inappropriate,"
said Rosanna Landis Weaver, program manager of the executive compensation initiative at As You Sow,
a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that promotes corporate responsibility. Pay for performance as
it is often structured creates "very troublesome, problematic incentives that can potentially drive
very short-term thinking."
A Reuters analysis of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index found that 255 of those
companies reward executives in part by using EPS, while another 28 use other per-share metrics that
can be influenced by share buybacks.
In addition, 303 also use total shareholder return, essentially a company's share price appreciation
plus dividends, and 169 companies use both EPS and total shareholder return to help determine pay.
STANDARD PRACTICE
EPS and share-price metrics underpin much of the compensation of some of the highest-paid CEOs,
including those at Walt Disney Co, Viacom Inc, 21st Century Fox Inc, Target Corp and Cisco Systems
Inc.
... ... ...
As reported in the first article in this series, share buybacks by U.S. non-financial companies
reached a record $520 billion in the most recent reporting year. A Reuters analysis of 3,300 non-financial
companies found that together, buybacks and dividends have surpassed total capital expenditures and
are more than double research and development spending.
Companies buy back their shares for various reasons. They do it when they believe their shares
are undervalued, or to make use of cash or cheap debt financing when business conditions don't justify
capital or R&D spending. They also do it to meet the expectations of increasingly demanding investors.
Lately, the sheer volume of buybacks has prompted complaints among academics, politicians and
investors that massive stock repurchases are stifling innovation and hurting U.S. competitiveness
- and contributing to widening income inequality by rewarding executives with ever higher pay, often
divorced from a company's underlying performance.
"There's been an over-focus on buybacks and raising EPS to hit share option targets, and we
know that those are concentrated in the hands of the few, and that the few is in the top 1 percent,"
said James Montier, a member of the asset allocation team at global investment firm GMO in London,
which manages more than $100 billion in assets.
The introduction of performance targets has been a driver of surging executive pay, helping
to widen the gap between the richest in America and the rest of the country. Median CEO pay among
companies in the S&P 500 increased to a record $10.3 million last year, up from $8.6 million in 2010,
according to data firm Equilar.
At those levels, CEOs last year were paid 303 times what workers in their industries earned,
compared with a ratio of 59 times in 1989, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based
nonprofit.
SALARY AND A LOT MORE
Today, the bulk of CEO compensation comes from cash and stock awards, much of it tied to performance
metrics. Last year, base salary accounted for just 8 percent of CEO pay for S&P 500 companies, while
cash and stock incentives made up more than 45 percent, according to proxy advisory firm Institutional
Shareholder Services.
...In 1992, Congress changed the tax code to curb rising executive pay and encourage performance-based
compensation. It didn't work. Instead, the shift is widely blamed for soaring executive pay and a
heavier emphasis on short-term results.
Companies started tying performance pay to "short-term metrics, and suddenly all the things we
don't want to happen start happening," said Lynn Stout, a professor of corporate and business law
at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York. "Despite 20 years of trying, we have still failed to come
up with an objective performance metric that can't be gamed."
Shareholder expectations have changed, too. The individuals and other smaller, mostly passive
investors who dominated equity markets during the postwar decades have given way to large institutional
investors. These institutions tend to want higher returns, sooner, than their predecessors. Consider
that the average time investors held a particular share has fallen from around eight years in 1960
to a year and a half now, according to New York Stock Exchange data.
"TOO EASY TO MANIPULATE"
Companies like to use EPS as a performance metric because it is the primary focus of financial
analysts when assessing the value of a stock and of investors when evaluating their return on investment.
But "it is not an appropriate target, it's too easy to manipulate," said Almeida, the University
of Illinois finance professor.
...By providing a lift to a stock's price, buybacks can increase total shareholder return to target
levels, resulting in more stock awards for executives. And of course, the higher stock price lifts
the value of company stock they already own.
"It can goose the price at time when the high price means they earn performance shares … even
if the stock price later goes back down, they got their shares," said Michael Dorff, a law professor
at the Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.
Exxon Corp, the largest repurchaser of shares over the past decade, has rejected shareholder proposals
that it add three-year targets based on shareholder return to its compensation program. In its most
recent proxy, the energy company said doing so could increase risk-taking and encourage underinvestment
to achieve short-term results.
The energy giant makes half of its annual executive bonus payments contingent on meeting longer-term
EPS thresholds. Since 2005, the company has spent more than $200 billion on buybacks.
ADDITIONAL TWEAKS
While performance targets are specific, they aren't necessarily fixed. Corporate boards often
adjust them or how they are calculated in ways that lift executive pay.
Richard Stallman has never been...er...shy about
sharing his opinions, particularly when it comes to software that doesn't adhere to his vision. This
time around he has written an opinion column for The Guardian that takes on Microsoft Windows, Apple's
OS X and even Amazon's Kindle e-reader.
Richard Stallman on malware for The Guardian:
Malware is the name for a program designed to mistreat its users. Viruses typically are malicious,
but software products and software preinstalled in products can also be malicious – and often
are, when not free/libre.
Developers today shamelessly mistreat users; when caught, they claim that fine print in EULAs
(end user licence agreements) makes it ethical. (That might, at most, make it lawful, which is
different.) So many cases of proprietary malware have been reported, that we must consider any
proprietary program suspect and dangerous. In the 21st century, proprietary software is computing
for suckers.
Windows snoops on users, shackles users and, on mobiles, censors apps; it also has a universal
back door that allows Microsoft to remotely impose software changes. Microsoft sabotages Windows
users by showing security holes to the NSA before fixing them.
Apple systems are malware too: MacOS snoops and shackles; iOS snoops, shackles, censors apps
and has a back door. Even Android contains malware in a nonfree component: a back door for remote
forcible installation or deinstallation of any app.
Amazon's Kindle e-reader reports what page of what book is being read, plus all notes and underlining
the user enters; it shackles the user against sharing or even freely giving away or lending the
book, and has an Orwellian back door for erasing books.
As you might imagine, Stallman's commentary drew a lot of responses from readers of The Guardian:
JohnnyHooper: "The Android operating system is basically spyware, mining
your personal information, contacts, whereabouts, search activity, media preferences, photos,
email, texts, chat, shopping, calls, etc so Google can onsell it to advertisers. Nice one,
Google, you creep."
Ece301: "What the free software movement needs is more than just the
scare stories about 'capability' - without reliable examples of this stuff causing real-world
problems for real people such detail-free articles as this are going to affect nothing.
I'm quite willing to make the sacrifice of google, apple, the NSA etc. knowing exactly
where I am if it means my phone can give me directions to my hotel in this strange city.
Likewise if I want the capability to erase my phone should I lose it, I understand that
that means apple etc. can probably get at that function too.
Limiting_Factor: "Or for people who don't want to mess about with command
lines and like to have commercially supported software that works. Which is about 99% of
the home computer using population. You lost, Richard. Get over it."
CosmicTrigger: "Selling customers the illusion of security and then
leaving a great gaping hole in it for the government to snoop in return for a bit of a tax
break is absolutely reprehensible."
Liam01: "This guy is as extreme as the director of the NSA , just at
the other end of the spectrum. I'd be more inclined to listen if he showed a hint of nuance,
or didn't open with an egoistic claim of "invented free software"."
AlanWatson: "My Kindle doesn't report anything, because I never turn
the WiFi on. Just sideload content from wherever I want to buy it (or download if there
is no copyright), format conversion is trivial, and for the minor inconvenience of having
to use a USB cable I'm free of Amazon's lock-in, snooping and remote wipes. Simple."
Rod: "Here's my crazy prediction: Stallman's diatribes will continue
to have zero measurable impact on adoption rates of Free software. Time to try a different
approach, Richey."
Quicknstraight: "Not all snooping is bad for you. If it enhances your
experience, say, by providing you with a better playlist or recommendations for things you
like doing, what's the big deal?
Consumers don't have it every which way. You either accept a degree of data collection
in return for a more enjoyable user experience, or accept that no data collection means
you'll have to search out everything for yourself.
The average user prefers the easier option and has no interest in having to dig away
through loads of crap to find what they want.
They key question should be what happens to data that is mined about users, not whether
mining such data is bad per se."
Bob Rich: "As an author, I LIKE the idea that if a person buys a copy
of my book, that copy cannot be freely distributed to others. With a paper book, that means
that the original owner no longer has access to it. With an electronic book, "giving" or
"lending" means duplicating, and that's stealing my work. The same is true for other creators:
musicians, artists, photographers."
Mouse: "Stallman's a hero and we wouldn't have the level of (low-cost)
technology all we enjoy today without him. I remember reading an article by him years ago
and he said that the only laptop he'd use was the Lemote Yeeloong because it was the only
system that was 100% open, even down to the BIOS - he was specifically paranoid about how
government agencies might modify proprietary code for their own ends - and at the time I
thought "Jeez, he's a bit of a paranoid fruitcake", but post-Snowden he's been proven to
be right about what the security services get up."
When most people think of CIA sabotage, they think of coups, assassinations,
proxy wars, armed rebel groups, and even false flags - not strategic stupidity and purposeful bureaucratic ineptitude.
However, according to a
declassified document from 1944,
the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which later became the CIA, used and trained a curious breed of "citizen-saboteurs"
in occupied nations like Norway and France.
The World War II-era document, called Simple Sabotage Field Manual, outlines ways in which operatives can disrupt
and demoralize enemy administrators and police forces. The first section of the document, which can be read in its entirety
here, addresses "Organizations and Conferences" - and how to turn them into a
"dysfunctional mess":
Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes
and accounts of personal experiences.
When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committee as
large as possible - never less than five.
Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability
of that decision.
Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result
in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
On its
official webpage, the CIA boasts about finding innovative ways to bring about sabotage, calling their tactics for destabilization
"surprisingly relevant." While they admit that some of the ideas may seem a bit outdated, they claim that "Together
they are a reminder of how easily productivity and order can be undermined."
In a second section targeted at manager-saboteurs, the guide lists the following tactical moves:
In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that important jobs are assigned to inefficient
workers.
Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw.
To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions.
Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, paychecks, and so on. See that three people have
to approve everything where one would do.
Finally, the guide presents protocol for how saboteur-employees can disrupt enemy operations, too:
Work slowly.
Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can.
Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing
you from doing your job right.
Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
The CIA is proud of its Kafkaesque field manual and evidently still views it as an unorthodox but effective form of destabilizing
enemy operations around the world. Of course, so too might an anarchist or revolutionary look at such tactics and view them
in the context of disrupting certain domestic power structures, many of which are already built like a bureaucratic house of cards.
It seems if any country should refrain from showcasing how easy it is to disrupt inefficient federal agencies, however,
it would be the United States.
That looks like a French backlash against neoliberal globalization, Against the society that
cares only about top 1%.
Notable quotes:
"... Contrary to what we are told by the transnational business-political-media elite, there is nothing inevitable about ever-increasing 'globalisation'. It is simply a race to the bottom for ever-cheaper labour and erasure of sovereign national obstructions to corporate profit. ..."
"... the impact of the third globalisation wave on any given country is the result of very deliberate political choices (many of which were taken by French governments rather later than their neighbours), not of some sort of inevitable natural fact. You do not, for instance, have to espouse unmitigated cross-border capital transfers. ..."
"... the sooner the European Left admits that it was right in the 70s, when it correctly identified the EEC as an anti-worker construct, the better. Unless you fancy having a smattering of far right governments all over the EZ, that is. ..."
"... France has terrible foreign policy. They completely destroyed Libya. France is responsible for the rise of far-right. ..."
"... The elite's disregard for anyone's opinion apart from their own is largely the cause of the rise of the Front National. It is difficult to see how allowing millions of immigrants to settle in Europe can end well in the short to long term. ..."
"... Not a bad article, this. Still, I wish this newspaper's writers would stop defining democracy as "that with which I agree". The FN is a Democratic Party. Deal with it. ..."
"... If mainstream liberal and conservative parties will not listen to the citizenry's very real and very legitimate concerns about immigration and Islam, that citizenry will hold their collective nose and vote for right wing populists who will. ..."
"... What we saw in France is being repeated in Sweden, the Netherlands and much of Eastern Europe. It is fueling Donald Trumps presidential run and Nigel Faranges parliamentary ambitions. ..."
"... For the older generation in particular, Britain has changed out of all recognition in hte last 50 years. Although change can be a good thing, it can also be extremely unsettling. ..."
"... Democracy in action. Unlike the UK whereby the politicians execute policy that they either lied about during the election, or they simply changed their mind in contempt of the electorate safe in the knowledge that the electorate will have to wait years to kick them out again. ..."
"... Agreed, any grand coalition of the French ruling elite created as a blocker will only prove to many of the French people that there is very little real difference between the established parties; possibly driving those who do want real change towards the FN. ..."
"... Globalisation depends on no borders - Factories and production have moved to avail of cheaper production. Shareholders and investment funds have benefited. Many, many citizens of sovereign nations have not. Now some European politicians and institutions have determined that immigration and multiculturalism is the new agenda anyway. There is to be no consultation by the political elite or the media with the people of the sovereign nations of Europe - It is to be forced on people whether they like it or not. ..."
"... The rise of Front National is happening for the same reason the rise of the far right (or just plain right wing) parties is happening all over Europe: Moderate parties on both sides of the political spectrum refuse to have anything even resembling a discussion on the negative side of immigration or multiculturalism. It's really as simple as that. The far right has been handed a complete monopoly on an issue which is becoming an increasingly hot topic. They have an open goal. ..."
Nougarayde was a journalist at the" Monde"; you know, this "french elite newspaper", who
hate the front national and despise its supporters!
viscount_jellicoe, 7 Dec 2015 21:39
Contrary to what we are told by the transnational business-political-media elite, there
is nothing inevitable about ever-increasing 'globalisation'. It is simply a race to the bottom
for ever-cheaper labour and erasure of sovereign national obstructions to corporate profit.
Daniele Gatti, 7 Dec 2015 21:46
Your economic history is missing a few very important details, namely:
1) the impact of the third globalisation wave on any given country is the result of very
deliberate political choices (many of which were taken by French governments rather later than
their neighbours), not of some sort of inevitable natural fact. You do not, for instance, have
to espouse unmitigated cross-border capital transfers.
2) there is no mention at all of the failed European monetary experiments, namely the ERM and
the euro. The first was de facto dismantled in 1993 (by setting ridiculous oscillation bands)
to avoid a French Black Wednesday after it had destroyed competitiveness pretty much
everywhere apart from Germany and the Deutschemark area, the second is doing pretty much the
same, only it was slower to compromise France than other countries because its economy is
stronger than others.
The fact remains that while relatively high public spending, in violation of the Maastricht
parameters, directly translates into higher inflation than Germany, which leads to loss of
competitiveness, which leads to a CA deficit.
Sorry, but the French school system has absolutely nothing to do with all of the above, and
the sooner the European Left admits that it was right in the 70s, when it correctly
identified the EEC as an anti-worker construct, the better. Unless you fancy having a
smattering of far right governments all over the EZ, that is.
Andu68, 7 Dec 2015 21:49
Why exactly is the FN far right? The only controversial position they have is their belief
there is an urgent need to restrict immigration, yet this is a position held by the majority
of European's public opinion, though not by mainstream politicians and certainly not by
members of the left intellectual elite like Miss Nougareyde.
LouSmorels, 7 Dec 2015 21:49
If I were French, I would vote FN! Why should the French give up their country to
become something else. Not everyone wants to end up like Sweden...
finnrkn -> LouSmorels, 7 Dec 2015 22:22
Not even Sweden wants to end up like Sweden nowadays.
Perhaps the rise of the FN reflects its offering to the electorate something that they
want. It's something you don't want, so, rather in the spirit of the EU's rejection
of result of a referendum that gives the 'wrong' result, you seek some excuse for that that you
perceive to be the ill judgement of a portion of the electorate. Democracy can be irritating,
can't it?
euphoniumbrioche, 7 Dec 2015 20:46
France's cowardly elite is to blame for the rise of Marine Le Pen
France has terrible foreign policy. They completely destroyed Libya. France is responsible
for the rise of far-right.
allom8 -> euphoniumbrioche, 7 Dec 2015 20:55
An inadequate explanation given the far right's continued rise all over Europe. The elephant
in the room gets bigger with every passing day.
GodzillaJones, 7 Dec 2015 20:48
It's a reflection of politics in the West at the moment. When voters are not represented by
their politicians, they look for something else, even if it's a bit unsavoury.
ID9969553, 7 Dec 2015 20:48
The elite's disregard for anyone's opinion apart from their own is largely the cause of
the rise of the Front National. It is difficult to see how allowing millions of immigrants to
settle in Europe can end well in the short to long term.
WagerObe -> gunforhire, 7 Dec 2015 22:01
Interestingly though, LR did not get the voting shares lost by the PS. They went to the FN.
This is not a vote. against socialism, indeed on economic questions the FN is closer to the communists
than classic right-wing parties.
This is a vote against the main stream parties, and frankly it is not surprising. A succession
of UMP - PS governments have changed nothing. Remains to be seen if FN can confirm the try next
Sunday. If they win PACA
finnrkn, 7 Dec 2015 20:49
Not a bad article, this. Still, I wish this newspaper's writers would stop defining democracy
as "that with which I agree". The FN is a Democratic Party. Deal with it.
ID7475021 -> finnrkn, 7 Dec 2015 20:57
The Nazi party in Germany used democracy to help itself climb to power... one of the problems
democracy has not managed to address is how to deal with parties who use that democracy with the
ultimate aim of destroying it.
finnrkn -> ID7475021, 7 Dec 2015 21:04
True enough; communist parties also subverted democracy in Eastern Europe. Beyond nationalism,
though, I can't see there's much of a comparison to be made between the FN and the Nazis.
elliot2511, 7 Dec 2015 20:49
If mainstream liberal and conservative parties will not listen to the citizenry's very
real and very legitimate concerns about immigration and Islam, that citizenry will hold their
collective nose and vote for right wing populists who will.
What we saw in France is being repeated in Sweden, the Netherlands and much of Eastern Europe.
It is fueling Donald Trumps presidential run and Nigel Faranges parliamentary ambitions.
ltm123 elliot2511, 7 Dec 2015 21:09
Unfortunate those very real concerns about immigration are not very legitimate. You only have
to do a small amount of research to realise that immigration isn't to blame for most of the things
the main stream media would have you believe.
huzar30 ltm123, 7 Dec 2015 21:14
That really isn't the point. For the older generation in particular, Britain has changed
out of all recognition in hte last 50 years. Although change can be a good thing, it can also
be extremely unsettling.
elliot2511 -> ltm123, 7 Dec 2015 21:23
"You only have to do a small amount of research to realise that immigration isn't to blame
for most of the things "
You may be right...but people do not want mass immigration, and more particularly, do not want
mass immigration from Islamic countries.
That might be fair or unfair, justified or unjustified, but surely the greater population should
have some say in what their country looks like.
Laurence Johnson, 7 Dec 2015 20:50
Democracy in action. Unlike the UK whereby the politicians execute policy that they
either lied about during the election, or they simply changed their mind in contempt of the
electorate safe in the knowledge that the electorate will have to wait years to kick them out
again.
Dave Beardsly -> Laurence Johnson, 7 Dec 2015 21:13
Democracy in action. Unlike the UK
Is it a better democracy? Or is it something to do with a more impartial, fairer, press?
Because however bad our democracy is or isn't, we know for sure our press can make and break
anyone it chooses.
Sachaflashman, 7 Dec 2015 20:51
"But the fact that such a question can now legitimately be raised is in itself a
trauma for all those who care about democracy."
In plain English: a democratic party that has managed to purge its past, re-defined itself
and convinced 6 million citizens to vote for it....is nothing more than a trauma. If anything,
the democratic trauma is a system whereby party A. can win the most votes only to be knocked
out in round two by party B. dropping out and lending its votes to party C.
This is a recipe for allowing bland, elitist politicians to stay in power forever.
Mark Steven -> Conway Sachaflashman, 7 Dec 2015 22:22
Agreed, any grand coalition of the French ruling elite created as a blocker will only
prove to many of the French people that there is very little real difference between the
established parties; possibly driving those who do want real change towards the FN.
Magicmoonbeam2, 7 Dec 2015 20:53
The so called elite have become accustomed to ruling independently of their electorates
because for years their electorates had nowhere else to go. Now that their electorates have
somewhere else to go, the brown squishy stuff is hitting the fan.
Quiller -> Dave Beardsly, 7 Dec 2015 21:29
Globalisation depends on no borders - Factories and production have moved to avail of
cheaper production. Shareholders and investment funds have benefited. Many, many citizens of
sovereign nations have not. Now some European politicians and institutions have determined
that immigration and multiculturalism is the new agenda anyway. There is to be no consultation
by the political elite or the media with the people of the sovereign nations of Europe - It is
to be forced on people whether they like it or not.
Any nation, people or politician who questions the new ideology is categorised as backward
and reactionary. Secret meeting are held to push the issues forward. People of the sovereign
nations of Europe have not signed up to the Federal Europe - France and other nations rejected
the European Constitution. Nonetheless the ideologues press the issues forward onto the
people.
The latest revolt has been over the issue is immigration by Germany and Sweden - their
initial action was - "we can do it !". When it dawned on them that they could not, they have
tried to bully their way through the other sovereign nations via government structures, the
European Union and the UN.
Following the atrocities in France, Beirut, Ankara, Nigeria, Syria - the people are
deciding they do not want to be a part of the change to the multicultural environment. Why
would they when they perceive the change to be a retrograde step. If the current political
party that one has voted for does not serve one's interests or they appear to be a political
party with no clothes, then it is time to move on to a different political representative
party. Of course - the smear continues against political parties that do not have the
ideologues view.
allom8, 7 Dec 2015 20:57
The rise of Front National is happening for the same reason the rise of the far right
(or just plain right wing) parties is happening all over Europe: Moderate parties on both
sides of the political spectrum refuse to have anything even resembling a discussion on the
negative side of immigration or multiculturalism. It's really as simple as that.
The far right has been handed a complete monopoly on an issue which is becoming an
increasingly hot topic. They have an open goal.
Koolio, 7 Dec 2015 21:03
"none of the mainstream parties have been able to address the many social and
economic ailments"
They've never tried. French politicians promise bold visions of the past as they keep
trying to reheat and perpetuate policies that generate the record unemployment and entrenched
structural inequalities while hoping if they say "républicain" ten times a day nobody will
question their consistent failure.
Even the politicians are stale, for example the Républicains are fighting over whether to back
proven failure Sarkozy or convicted criminal Juppé (albeit gifted a crony-style presidential
pardon by his ex-boss Chirac). Given choices like this no wonder millions of voters
dissatisfied by Hollande and Valls skip to the FN.
bally38, 7 Dec 2015 21:08
Marine Le Pen has no solution for France's problems, her economic programme is all about
retreating from the outside world and Europe.
My understanding of the FN economic policy. Withdraw from the Euro. Close the borders. Put up
a high tariff wall around france. (Which would mean de facto withdrawal from the Single
Market).
Quite how they think jobs are created in a global economy I really don't know. In some ways it
would be great if they did win. Currently the eurosceptics can act all cosy with each other.
Whereas in fact, their policies would amount to a mutual trade war.
MrBojangles007, 7 Dec 2015 21:08
Political dogma from the EU federalists and the invite from Merkel to all the worlds
refugees is naive in the extreme. The people still love their country and most do not want a
country called Europe.
Too much too soon, we do not even speak the same language around 28 countries, until we do - a
country called Europe is for the birds. The Euro has not worked, open borders have not worked,
the EU is in an utter mess.
FN - will always make progress when chaos reigns.
PrinceEdward, 7 Dec 2015 21:29
"The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy ... and a very correct
one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed
civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are
invariably disastrous." -- Captain Jean-Luc Picard, USS Enterprise
flowerssoft, 7 Dec 2015 21:32
France's cowardly elite are responsible because they have refused to tackle issues which
negatively affect the white working class in France.
PrinceEdward, 7 Dec 2015 21:35
People across the West are still scratching their heads as to why, given the large numbers
of un and under employed young people, we need mass immigration, even in the face of
austerity.
The only answer I ever here is: If you're not for it, you're a xenophobe. Regardless of the
sharp cuts to social programmes and the lack of housing throughout Europe. And if a European
Country genuinely needs unskilled workers, there are plenty of Eastern and Southern Europeans
who would be happy to bridge the gap.
haunsk PrinceEdward, 7 Dec 2015 21:54
There you have it in a nutshell. We are being spun,we are being played.
smarty78, 7 Dec 2015 21:37
'France's cowardly elite...'
Natalie, it's rare I agree with you, so I'll focus on our consensus with the headline.
That the other parties are now looking to form a block against FN demonstrates quite perfectly
the arrogance of the French political elite and their utter contempt for democracy.
I dearly wish FN the very best of luck - at least they attend to the legitimate grievances of
a significant proportion of people.
Fascist, Nazi, extremist blahblah... Bring it on and watch this space.
André Pampel, 7 Dec 2015 21:51
Ironic being that as far as economics goes extreme left and right speak almost from the
same page....Mainly protectionism. What Nougayréde conviently does not say is how many people
from the extreme left have gone over to the fn and that their vote is extremely high in the
18-34 age group, and the well educated in that group too. And herself was and is still part of
the "establishment" so ironic criticising her chums like that....
Anneke Ruben, 7 Dec 2015 21:52
If people feel threatened, they tend to be more conservative. And frankly, I don't see a
reason why France or the rest of Europe shouldn't feel threatened.. Mass unemployment, the
Euro zone mess, thousands of migrants that pose as "refugees", migrants that mostly follow an
unreformed religion, the mass shootings in Paris... So... Why is the left blaming the "elite"
and not the ones responsible for creating this mess?
Meta-criticism of reports in this case is neither here nor there, since it's possible to track down
the original sources.
The Times summary of Ms. Rey's Jackson Hole paper is accurate; in it she
does discuss the importance of the global financial cycle in creating boom and bust cycles in emerging
markets. (This isn't news to anyone who's followed Krugman's writings on global financial crises
over the years.)
When Yellen announced that the Fed would not raise rates in September, she did cite "heightened
uncertainties abroad" as a factor. While I cannot find her mentioning China specifically, a lot of
the discussion in financial sources prior to the announcement cite the Chinese devaluation as an
important factor leading to Yellen's decision.
As for economists warning that a rate increase combined with uncertain exchange rates in China
and other countries would weaken global growth, that was most likely a reference to the IMF's World
Economic Outlook report, which does indeed make this argument.
When capital became unable of reaping large and fairly secure profits from manufacturing it like
water tries to find other ways. It starts with semi-criminalizing finance -- that's the origin
of the term "casino capitalism" (aka neoliberalism). I see casino capitalism as a set of semi-criminal
ways of maintaining the rate of profits.
The key prerequisite here is corruption of regulators. So laws on the book does not matter
much if regulators do not enforce them.
As Joseph Schumpeter noted, capitalism is not a steady-state system. It is unstable system
in which population constantly experience and then try to overcome one crisis after another. Joseph
Schumpeter naively assumed that the net result is reimaging itself via so called "creative destruction".
But what we observe now it "uncreative destruction". In other words casino capitalism is devouring
the host, the US society.
So all those Hillary statements are for plebs consumption only (another attempt to play "change
we can believe in" trick). Just a hot air designed to get elected. Both Clintons are in the pocket
of financial oligarchy and will never be able to get out of it alive.
GeorgeK said...
I believe I'm the only one on this blog that has actually traded bonds, done swaps and hedged
bank portfolios with futures contracts. Sooo I kinda know something about this topic.
Hilary is a fraud; her daughter worked at a Hedge fund where she met her husband Marc Mezvinsky,
who is now a money manager at the Eaglevale fund. Oddly many of the Eaglevale investors are investors
in the Clinton Foundation and have also given money to Hilary's campaign. The Clinton Foundation
gets boat loads of money from Hedge funds and will not raise taxes on such a rich source of funding.
The grooms mother is Marjory Margolies (ex)Mezvinsky, she cast the final vote giving Clinton
the winning vote to raise taxes. She subsequently lost her run for reelection to congress, then
her husband was convicted of fraud and they divorced.
This speech is an attempt to pry people away from Bernie, it won't work with primary voters
but might with what's left of rational Republicans in the general election.
When capital became unable of reaping large and fairly secure profits from manufacturing it like
water tries to find other ways. It starts with semi-criminalizing finance -- that's the origin
of the term "casino capitalism" (aka neoliberalism). I see casino capitalism as a set of semi-criminal
ways of maintaining the rate of profits.
The key prerequisite here is corruption of regulators. So laws on the book does not matter
much if regulators do not enforce them.
As Joseph Schumpeter noted, capitalism is not a steady-state system. It is unstable system
in which population constantly experience and then try to overcome one crisis after another. Joseph
Schumpeter naively assumed that the net result is reimaging itself via so called "creative destruction".
But what we observe now it "uncreative destruction". In other words casino capitalism is devouring
the host, the US society.
So all those Hillary statements are for plebs consumption only (another attempt to play "change
we can believe in" trick). Just a hot air designed to get elected. Both Clintons are in the pocket
of financial oligarchy and will never be able to get out of it alive.
GeorgeK said...
I believe I'm the only one on this blog that has actually traded bonds, done swaps and
hedged bank portfolios with futures contracts. Sooo I kinda know something about this topic.
Hilary is a fraud; her daughter worked at a Hedge fund where she met her husband Marc
Mezvinsky, who is now a money manager at the Eaglevale fund. Oddly many of the Eaglevale
investors are investors in the Clinton Foundation and have also given money to Hilary's
campaign. The Clinton Foundation gets boat loads of money from Hedge funds and will not raise
taxes on such a rich source of funding.
The grooms mother is Marjory Margolies (ex)Mezvinsky, she cast the final vote giving Clinton
the winning vote to raise taxes. She subsequently lost her run for reelection to congress,
then her husband was convicted of fraud and they divorced.
This speech is an attempt to pry people away from Bernie, it won't work with primary voters
but might with what's left of rational Republicans in the general election.
Erdogan, desperate and angry over his losing battle to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, ordered
the shooting down of a Russian fighter jet. Erdogan has been actively pursuing the ouster of Assad
since 2012, but Russia's recent intervention in Syria, in alliance with Iran and its highly ideologically
and politically motivated proxies, has resulted in a serious setback for Erdogan's plans.
Putin's
determination to destroy Turkey's proxies at the Syrian borders and to thwart Erdogan's plan to create
a no-fly/buffer zone in the area has derailed Erdogan's plans for Syria. Erdogan hoped to use the
buffer zone as an operational hub aimed at bringing down President Assad.
Russian attacks on Turkmen-dominated areas in Bayirbucak, where the Russian plane was downed,
would also inflict serious collateral damage to Turkey. The Turkish government regards the area in
north-west Syria, presently under the control of the Bayirbucak Turkmens, as an important buffer
zone preventing the territorial expansion of Syria's Kurdish-minority militias, whom it regards as
terrorists linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Erdogan's objective in shooting down the plane was to provoke Russia into a harsh response. He
hoped the response would bring Russia into conflict with the whole of NATO, which would help reverse
Turkey's declining fortunes in the Syrian war.
Erdogan's calculations went terribly wrong. Following the incident, Turkey requested an emergency
meeting with NATO members. Contrary to Erdogan's expectations, although, members did not support
Russia, neither did they wholeheartedly support Turkey. Many members questioned Turkey's action and,
according to Reuters, "expressed concern that Turkey did not escort the Russian warplane out
of its airspace." In a clear indication of the suspicion among NATO members regarding Turkey's real
intention behind its adventurism, some diplomats
told Reuters, "There are other ways of dealing with these kinds of incidents."
Not only didn't Cold War II happen, French President Francois Hollande, who promised "merciless"
revenge in the aftermath of Paris attacks, met with Putin and they agreed to form an alliance against
Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL) in Syria. The outcome of such an alliance is that the "Assad must
go" mantra will be overshadowed by the war against Daesh--something that Erdogan hated to occur.
Erdogan's plan to bring the West and Russia into conflict became even more unattainable when France's
move was followed by Britain and then Germany.
Turkey also lost significant room to maneuver in the post-shootdown of the Russian fighter jet.
Russia, by deploying the
powerful S-400 surface-to-air missile system in Hmeymim airbase near Latakia, sent a strong signal
to Turkey--a de facto no-fly zone already in effect south of the Turkish-Syrian border.
Russia also sent Turkey and NATO a clear message by arming its fighter jets with air-to-air missiles.
On November 30, the Russian Air Force announced that "today, for the first time Su34 fighter-bombers
departed for combat sorties with air-to-air short- and medium-range missiles.... The usage of such
weaponry is necessary for providing security of the aircraft of the Russian" air force, the
announcement read.
Moscow also authorized numerous economic sanctions against Ankara ranging from tourism to agricultural
products as well as sanctions on energy and construction projects.
Erdogan took a conciliatory stance after the incident. In a speech in Ankara,
he said, "We are strategic partners ... 'Joint projects may be halted, ties could be cut'? Are
such approaches fitting for politicians?" Erdogan even requested a meeting with Putin while both
leaders were in Paris for the COP21 climate change conference on November 30, but Putin
rejected the request.
Russians launched a heavy campaign to damage Erdogan's credibility and reputation. Vladimir Putin
and numerous other Russian politicians leveled accusations regarding Turkey's sponsorship and cooperation
with ISIS as well as allegations of buying oil smuggled by ISIS.
On November 30, on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris,
Putin stated,
"At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits
controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale." He even went
further to say, "We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by
a desire to ensure security of this oil's delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers."
In response, Erdogan said he will resign as the country's president if Russia provides evidence
that implicates Turkey in any oil trade with ISIS.
Later, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister,
said, "We have repeatedly publicly stated that oil from the IS-controlled territories is transported
abroad, particularly to Turkey. The facts that substantiate these claims will be formally presented
in the UN in particular, and to all parties concerned."
Then on December 2, the Russian Defense Ministry held a briefing concerning ISIS funding. During
the briefing,
which included a PowerPoint presentation, satellite images, and videos, Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly
Antonov said, "According to our data, the top political leadership of the country - President Erdogan
and his family - is involved in this criminal business."
Antonov
added, "In the West, no one has asked questions about the fact that the Turkish president's son
heads one of the biggest energy companies, or that his son-in-law has been appointed energy minister.
What a marvelous family business."
On December 3, without mentioning specifics, Putin declared there was more evidence to come. "We
are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling,"
he said. "But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime ... are going to get
away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors,
they are sorely mistaken."
At this point, it is apparent that Putin's ultimate objective is to take advantage of the opportunity
presented to him to severely damage Erdogan's name and trustworthiness, both domestically and internationally,
or, even better, bring him and his regime down as a perceived power behind the extremists and the
anti-Assad forces in Syria. This is in line with Russia's plan for realizing its
strategic objectives in Syria.
"... Turkey and the U.S. State Department scoffed when Russia accused the Turkish government of being involved with smuggling ISIS oil. However, after Moscow presented convincing proof of Turkey's involvement, the Obama Administration changed its story. ..."
"... "If the American colleagues are not satisfied with those ones, they should watch videos gained by their own UAVs," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Facebook. ..."
"... The ever-changing political spin in Washington to avoid admitting the obvious looks increasingly dishonest. ..."
"... The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter's visit to northern Iraq on Nov. 4. ..."
The Iraqi government has
demanded they withdraw, calling it a "hostile act", but Ankara has decided to ignore Baghdad's
wishes.
This is only the latest act that undermines the wisdom of having Turkey as a military ally.
Turkey and the U.S. State Department scoffed when Russia accused the Turkish government of
being involved with smuggling ISIS oil. However, after Moscow
presented convincing proof of Turkey's involvement, the Obama Administration
changed its story.
While the US has long hyped the problem of ISIS oil smuggling, the recent Russian Defense Ministry
presentation, showing significant evidence of Turkey being involved in buying ISIS oil and taking
it to refineries run by the Turkish government, has changed their tune.
After a previous denial of the allegation against Turkey, the US is now admitting that the oil
is ending up smuggled into Turkey, but insists it is "of no significance" because so much of the
oil produced in ISIS-controlled parts of Syria is consumed inside Syria.
"The amount of oil being smuggled is extremely low and has decreased over time," claimed US special
envoy Amos Hochstein, a stunning admission which suggests the US was well aware of oil
smuggling into Turkey even before the Russian evidence.
Just in case we don't want to believe the Russian videos, Moscow has
a solution.
"If the American colleagues are not satisfied with those ones, they should watch videos
gained by their own UAVs," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Facebook.
The ever-changing political spin in Washington to avoid admitting the obvious looks increasingly
dishonest.
With the U.S. government knowing about Turkey's government involvement (Russia's photos show ISIS
oil smuggling trucks passing through border crossings without stopping), it begs the question of
what our objectives actually are?
Should Mosul be cleared of the Islamic State the Turkish heavy weapons will make it possible
for Turkey to claim the city unless the Iraqi government will use all its power to fight that
claim. Should the city stay in the hands of the Islamic State Turkey will make a deal with it
and act as its protector. It will benefit from the oil around Mosul which will be transferred
through north Iraq to Turkey and from there sold on the world markets. In short: This is an effort
to seize Iraq's northern oil fields.
That is the plan but it is a risky one. Turkey did not ask for permission to invade Iraq and
did not inform the Iraqi government.
The Turks
claim that they were invited by the Kurds:
Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul as the Turkish forces
in the region training the Peshmerga forces have been reinforced, Hürriyet reported.
The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President
Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter's visit to
northern Iraq on Nov. 4.
There are two problems with this. First: Massoud Barzani is no longer president of the KRG.
His mandate ran out and the parliament refused to prolong it. Second: Mosul and its Bashiqa area
are not part of the KRG. Barzani making a deal about it is like him making a deal about Paris.
Al-masdar news-feed-thing had guncam footage of a night attack, by frogfoots with their cannons,
on an ISIS truck park. Magnified view at first so you could see they were full-sized like semi's;
and no casual agglomeration, these were parked efficiently in a herringbone pattern, at least
400 and I think closer to a thousand. At the film's end the whole thing is just large, neat rectangles
of brightness.
So little did ISIS have to fear from an American-coalition airstrike that they had it set up
like this. And now these White House statements that it was no big deal.
And Europe sees all this on the news, the ISIS we didn't fight, the flood of refugees that
resulted, and sees Russia and Iran being the good guys.
I read where Putin was worried, called Merkel and Hollande to see if they were still on board
with 'Minsk 2', the current ceasefire agreement in Ukraine, and they said yes they were. He was
worried because Ukraine's President had said he rejected it and the U.S. had said we support that,
we reject it too.
We've lost Europe. World getting better fast.
MrWebster, Dec 06 · 04:28:32 PM
Your observations are right on, but only if you assume that thee enemy is IS and Al Queda in
Syria. At this point, I don't believe it is. Assad/Russians are perceived as the bigger and more
important enemy for the Obama administration and the neocons to focus on. In this case, what Turkey
is doing is acceptable-they are enabling opposition forces to Assad/Russians. Heck, when the Russians
started bombing, the Al Nusrat Front (Al Queda in Syria) was magically transformed by the administration
and the mass media into "rebels", "moderate rebels", "insurgents", "opposition".
native -> MrWebster
I wonder who gets to claim Mosel, after all the dust settles? Abadi seems to have lost all
control over his nominal countrymen in the north. But will the Iraqi Kurds side with Turkey, and
against their brethren just across the border?
"... The relationship between Russia and Western Europe's far right may be a marriage of convenience... ..."
"... Closer ties with rising political parties in the EU will give Putin more leverage against NATO. For its part, the European right sees the Russian leader as a staunch defender of national sovereignty and conservative values who has challenged US influence ..."
The relationship between Russia and Western Europe's far right may be a marriage of convenience...
Closer ties with rising political parties in the EU will give Putin more leverage against
NATO. For its part, the European right sees the Russian leader as a staunch defender of national
sovereignty and conservative values who has challenged US influence...
George Friedman, Founder and Chairman of Stratfor, or what is called by many "private/shadow CIA"
for its well known connections and close cooperation with the CIA, gave a very interesting speech
to the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs on subject Europe: Destined for Conflict? in February of
this year.
Even if Britain's role is symbolic at this stage, it has joined a very real war against an enemy
of great ferocity and experience, not least of air attacks. The highly informed Turkish military
analystMetin Gurcan, writing on Al-Monitor website, says that air strikes may have been effective
against Isis communications and training facilities, but adds that "it is extraordinary that there
is not a single [Isis] control facility that has been hit by allied air strikes".
This is not for
lack of trying and shows that talk of destroying Isis command and control centres in Raqqa is wishful
thinking, given that 2,934 American air strikes in Syria have failed to do so over the last 14 months.
Air strikes have had an impact on Isis's tactics and casualty rate, above all when they are used
in close co-operation with a well-organised ground force like the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection
Units (YPG). Isis may have lost as many as 2,200 fighters at Kobani which is a small and closely
packed city. On the other hand, the length of time it took to drive Isis out of it with 700 air strikes
demonstrated their fighters' willingness to die.
Many Isis commanders reportedly regard their tactics at Kobani as a mistake which cost the group
too many casualties and which it should not repeat. To do so it sacrificed two of its most important
military assets which are mobility and surprise. This does not mean that it will not fight
to the last bullet for cities like Raqqa and Mosul, but it did not do so for Tikrit and Sinjar where
it used snipers, booby traps and IEDs, but did not commit large detachments of troops.
Isis has modified its tactics to take account of the continuing risk of air strikes. It now has
a decentralised command structure, with tactical decisions being taken by leaders of small units
of eight to 10 men, whose overall mission is determined from the centre – but not how it should be
accomplished. This limits the ability of its opponents to monitor its communications.
Its forces assemble swiftly and attack soon afterwards with multiple diversionary operations,
as was seen when Mosul was captured in June 2014 and again when they took Ramadi, the capital of
Anbar province, this May.
They had been fighting their way into Baiji refinery, but this turned out to be a diversion and
Isis units pulled back from there as soon as Ramadi fell.
Isis's approach is to use a mixture of conventional, guerrilla and terrorist tactics, none unique
in themselves, but they have never been used before in combination. Air strikes mean that it is less
able to use captured tanks or big concentrations of vehicles packed with fighters. Instead it uses
IEDs, booby traps, snipers and mortar teams in even greater numbers.
Public martyrdom as an expression of religious faith is such a central part of its ideology that
it can deploy suicide bombers on foot or in vehicles in great numbers to destroy fortifications and
demoralize the enemy. Some 28 suicide bombers were reportedly used in the final stages of the battle
for Ramadi. Psychological warfare has always been an important element of Isis's tactical armory.
It has sought to terrify opposition forces by showing videos in which captured Iraqi or Syrian soldiers
are filmed being ritually decapitated or shot in the head.
Sometimes, the families of Syrian soldiers get a phone call from their son's mobile with a picture
of his body with his severed head on his chest. Mass killings of prisoners have taken place after
all Isis's victories (the al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra Front, does the same thing).
Heavy air attack will increase Isis's losses and it will be more difficult to bring in foreign
volunteers through Turkey because most of the border is now closed. But Isis rules an area with a
population of at least six million and conscripts all young men, who often want to become fighters
because there is no other employment. Isis may have a fighting force of 100,000 men, as is strongly
suggested by the very long front lines it holds and its ability to make multiple attacks simultaneously.
Whatever Britain's role, we will be fighting a formidable military machine.
JKF? I didn't know that the historian John King Fairbank was assassinated.
roadrider
Then I guess you have solid evidence to account for the actions of Allen Dulles, David Atlee
Phillips, William Harvey, David Morales, E. Howard Hunt, Richard Helms, James Angleton and other
CIA personnel and assets who had
1) perhaps the strongest motives to murder Kennedy
2) the means to carry out the crime, namely, their executive action (assassination) capability
and blackmail the government into aiding their cover up and
3) the opportunity to carry out such a plan given their complete lack of accountability to
the rest of the government and their unmatched expertise in lying, deceit, secrecy, fraud.
Because if you actually took the time to research or at least read about their actions in this
matter instead of just spouting bald assertions that you decline to back up with any facts you
would find their behavior nearly impossible to explain other than having at, the very least, guilty
knowledge of the crime.
Ruby claimed he was injected with cancer in jail, which ultimately rendered his second trial
(after winning appeal overturning his death sentence) moot. It sounded crazy, but so did the
motive proffered at his first trial-- that he wanted to save Mrs. Kennedy the anguish...
that is such an amazing story.. i've yet to watch the video of Lyndon Johnson's swearing in
- where Marr states he's seen to be winking and smiling etc -
those who wish - Pick it up at around 12 minutes. actually in that lecture he may
well be showing videos of it - I wdn't know cos just listen to the audio.
Make a note of the names - rising stars in the I'm "left"
but I'm not a conspiracist gaggle - ist a standard gaggle -
Chomsky, Monbiot are in it ( to win it of course - their
fabled "socialist" kingdom" ) - yeah yeah its BritLand so
yeah why I care I suppose.
There was an article in one of the Mexico City dailies today, written in response to the
shootings in San Bernardino, that cited some numbers that were news to me:
1) The United States is the #1 small arms manufacturer in the world
2) 83% of small arms manufactured in the world are manufactured in the United States
3) The US's closest competitor is Russia, which manufactures 11% of the world's small arms
4) Small arms are the US's third largest export product, surpassed only by aircraft and agricultural
products
5) The US market itself consumes 15 million small arms per year, and there are 300 million
small arms currently in the posession of US private citizens
6) Saudi Arabia, however, is by far and away the largest small arms consumer in the world,
and purchases 33.1% of all small arms produced in the world
7) Saudi Arabia then re-distributes these small arms to its allies in Syria, Lybia, etc.
8) So far in 2015, there have been 351 "mass shootings" in the United States in which 447 persons
have been killed and another 290 wounded
9) The world's leading human rights organizations never speak of the bloodbath ocurring around
the world due to the proliferation of small arms, much less the United Nations Security Council.
10) Both the United States and Russia seem quite content to keep any talk of small arms proliferation
off the agenda.
Many studies of the Eurozone crisis focus on peripheral European states' current account deficits,
or German neo-mercantilist policies that promoted export surpluses. However, German financialization
and input on the eurozone's financial architecture promoted deficits, increased systemic risk, and
facilitated the onset of Europe's subsequent crises.
Increasing German financial sector competition
encouraged German banks' increasing securitization and participation in global capital markets. Regional
liberalization created new marketplaces for German finance and increased crisis risk as current accounts
diverged between Europe's core and periphery. After the global financial crisis of 2008, German losses
on international securitized assets prompted retrenchment of lending, paving the way for the eurozone's
sovereign debt crisis. Rethinking how financial liberalization facilitated German and European financial
crises may prevent the eurozone from repeating these performances in the future.
After the 1970s, German banks' trading activity came to surpass lending as the largest share of
assets, while German firms increasingly borrowed in international capital markets rather than from
domestic banks. Private banks alleged that political subsidies and higher credit ratings for Landesbanks, public banks that insured household, small enterprise, and local banks' access
to capital, were unfair, and, in response, German lawmakers eliminated state guarantees for public
banks. Landesbanks, despite their historic role as stable, non-profit, providers of credit,
consequently had to compete with Germany's largest private banks for business. Changes in competition
restructured the German financial system. Mergers and takeovers occurred, especially in commercial
banks and Landesbanks. German financial intermediation ratios-total financial assets of
financial corporations divided by the total financial assets of the economy-increased. Greater securitization
and shadow banking relative to long-term lending increased German propensity for financial crisis,
as securities, shares, and securitized debt constituted increasing percentages of German banks' assets
and liabilities.
Throughout this period, Germany lacked a centralized financial regulatory apparatus. Only in 2002
did the country's central bank, the Bundesbank, establish the Bundenstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht
(Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, known as BaFin), which consolidated the responsibilities
of three agencies to oversee the whole financial sector. However, neither institution could keep
pace with new sources of financial and economic instability. German banking changes continued apace
and destabilizing trends in banking grew.
German desire for financial liberalization at the European level, meanwhile, helped increase potential
systemic risk of European finance. Despite some European opposition to removing barriers to capital
and trade flows, Germany prevailed in setting these preconditions for membership in the European
economic union. Germany's negotiating power stemmed from its strong currency, as well as French,
Italian, and smaller European economies' desire for currency stability. Germany demanded an independent
central bank for the union, removal of capital controls, and an expansion of the tasks banks could
perform within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The Second Banking Coordination Directive (SBCD)
mandated that banks perform commercial and investment intermediation to be certified within the EMU;
the Single Market Passport (SMP) required free trade and capital flows throughout the EMU. The SMP
and SBCD increased the scope of activity that financial institutions throughout the union were expected
to provide, and opened banks up to markets, instruments, and activities they could neither monitor
nor regulate, and hence to destabilizing shocks.
Intra-EMU lending and borrowing subsequently increased, and total lending and borrowing grew relative
to European countries' GDP from the early 1990s onward. Asymmetries emerged in capital flows between
Europe's core, particularly the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, to Europe's newly liberalized periphery.
German banks lent increasing volumes to EMU member states, especially peripheral states. Though this
lending on a country-by-country basis was a small percentage of Germany's GDP, it constituted larger
percentages of borrowers' GDPs. In 2007, Germany lent 1.23% of its GDP to Portugal; this represented
17.68% of Portugal's GDP; in 2008, Germany lent 6% of its GDP to Ireland; this was 84% of Irish GDP.
Germany, the largest European economy, lent larger percentages of its GDP to peripheral EMU nations
relative to its lending to richer European economies. These flows, more potentially disruptive for
borrowers than for the lender, reflected lack of oversight in asset management. German lending helped
destabilize European financial systems more vulnerable to rapid capital inflows, and created conditions
for large-scale capital flight in a crisis.
Financial competition increased in Europe over this period. Financial merger activity first accelerated
within national borders, and later grew at supra-national levels. These movements increased eurozone
access to capital, but increased pressure for banks to widen the scope of the services and lending
that they provided. Rising European securitization in this period increased systemic risk for the
EMU financial system. European holdings of U.S.-originated asset-backed securities increased by billions
of dollars from the early 2000s until shortly before 2008. German banks were among the EMU's top
issuers and acquirers of such assets. As banks' holdings of these assets increased, European systemic
risk increased as well.
European total debt as a percentage of GDP rose in this period. Financial debt relative to GDP
grew particularly sharply in core economies; Ireland was the only peripheral EMU economy with comparable
levels of financial debt. Though government debt relative to GDP fell or held constant for most EMU
nations, cross-border acquisition of sovereign debt increased until 2007. German banks acquired substantially
larger portfolios of sovereign debt issued by other European states, which would not decrease until
2010. Only in 2009 did government debt relative to GDP increase throughout the eurozone, as governments
guaranteed their financial systems to minimize the costs of the ensuing financial crisis.
The newly liberalized financial architecture of the eurozone increased both the market for German
financial services and overall systemic risk of the European financial system; these dynamics helped
destabilize the German financial system and economy at large. Rising German exports of goods, services,
and capital to the rest of Europe grew the German economy, but divergence of current account balances
within the EMU exposed it to sovereign debt risk in peripheral states. Potential systemic risk changed
into systemic risk after the subprime mortgage crisis began. EMU economies would not have subsequently
experienced such pressure to backstop national financial systems or to repay sovereign loans had
German banks not lent so much or purchased so many sovereign bonds within the union. Narratives that
fail to acknowledge Germany's role in promoting the circumstances that underlay the eurozone crisis
ignore the destabilizing power of financial liberalization, even for a global financial center like
Germany.
susan the other, December 3, 2015 at 1:06 pm
This is very interesting. It describes just how the EU mess unfolded beginning in 1970 with
deregulation of the financial industry in the core. Big fish eat little fish. It is as if for
4 decades the banks in Germany compensated their losses to the bigger international lenders by
taking on the riskier borrowers and were able to do so because of German mercantilism and financial
deregulation. Like the German domestic banks loaned the periphery money with abandon, and effectively
borrowed their own profits by speculating on bad customers. As German corporations did business
with big international banksters, who lent at lower rates, other German banks resorted to buying
the sovereign bonds of the periphery and selling CDOs, etc. The German banks were as over-extended
looking for profit as consumers living on their credit cards. Deregulation enriched only the biggest
international banks. We could call this behavior a form of digging your own grave. In 2009 the
periphery saw their borrowing costs threatened and guaranteed their own financial institutions
creating the "sovereign debt" that the core then refused to touch. Hypocrisy ruled. Generosity
was in short supply. The whole thing fell apart. Deregulation was just another form of looting.
washunate, December 3, 2015 at 1:28 pm
German losses on international securitized assets prompted retrenchment of lending, paving
the way for the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis.
I agree with the general conclusion at the end that German financialization is part of the overall
narrative of EMU, but I don't follow this specific link in the chain of events as described. The
eurozone has a sovereign debt crisis because those sovereign governments privatized the profits
and socialized the losses of a global system of fraud. And if we're assigning national blame,
it's a system run out of DC, NY, and London a lot more than Berlin, Frankfurt, and Brussels.
Current and capital account imbalances cancel each other out in the overall balance of payments.
As bank lending decreases (capital account surplus shrinks) then the current account deficit shrinks
as well (the 'trade deficit'). The problem is when governments step in and haphazardly backstop
some of the losses – at least, when they do so without imposing taxes on the wealthy to a sufficient
degree to pay for these bailouts.
The OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative is an effort by the G20 to curb the
abuse of transfer pricing by multinationals.
Senator Hatch is not a fan:
Throughout this process we have heard concerns from large sectors of the business community that
the BEPS project could be used to further undermine our nation's competitiveness and to unfairly
subject U.S. companies to greater tax liabilities abroad. Companies have also been concerned about
various reporting requirements that could impose significant compliance costs on American businesses
and force them to share highly sensitive proprietary information with foreign governments. I expect
that we'll hear about these concerns from the business community and others during today's hearing.
Indeed we heard from some lawyer representing
The Software Coalition who was there to mansplain to us how BEPS is evil. I learned two startling
things. First – Bermuda must be part of the US tax base. Secondly, if Google is expected to pay taxes
in the UK, it will take all those 53,600 jobs which are mainly in California and move them to Bermuda:
in particular how the changes to the international tax rules as developed under BEPS will significantly
reduce the U.S. tax base and create disincentives for U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) to
create R&D jobs in the United States
Yes – I find his testimony absurd at so many levels. Let's take Google as an example. When they say
foreign subsidiaries – think Bermuda. Over the past three year, Google's income has average $15.876
billion per year but its income taxes have only average $2.933 billion for an effective tax rate
of only 18.5%. How did that happen? Well – 55% of its income is sourced to these foreign subsidiaries
and the average tax rate on this income is only 6.5%. Nice deal! Google's tax model is not only easy
to explain but is also a very common one for those in the Software Coalition. While all of the R&D
is done in the U.S. and 45% of its sales are in the U.S. – U.S. source income is only 45% of worldwide
income. Very little of the foreign sourced income ends up in places like the UK even 11% of Google's
sales are to UK customers. Only problem is that income ends up on Ireland's books with the UK getting
a very modest amount of the profits. Now you might be wondering how Google got to the foreign taxes
to be only 6.5% of foreign sourced income since Ireland's tax rate is 12.5%. But think Double Irish
Dutch Sandwich and you'll get how the profits ended up in Bermuda as well as perhaps a good lunch!
But what about that repatriation tax you ask. Google's most recent 10-K proudly notes:
"We have not provided U.S. income taxes and foreign withholding taxes on the undistributed earnings
of foreign subsidiaries".
In other words, they are not paying that repatriation tax. Besides the Republicans want to eliminate.
Let's be honest – Congress has hamstringed the IRS efforts to enforce transfer pricing. The BEPS
initiative arose out of this failure. And now the Republicans in Congress are objecting to even these
efforts. And if Europe has the temerity of expecting its fair share of taxes, U.S. multinationals
will leave California and relocate in Bermuda? Who is this lawyer kidding?
Myrtle Blackwood
The development model in nation after nation is dependent upon global corporations. What is happening
is simply a byproduct of this.
Would the problem of transfer mythical corporate location and the resulting lost taxes be resolved
if taxes were based on point of revenue? Tax gross income where it is earned instead of taxing
profits where they are not earned.
"... Kristol argues in his book The Neoconservative Persuasion that those Jewish intellectuals
did not forsake their heritage (revolutionary ideology) when they gave up Communism and other revolutionary
movements, but had to make some changes in their thinking. America is filled with such former Trotskyists
who unleashed an unprecedented foreign policy that led to the collapse of the American economy. ..."
"... Noted Australian economist John Quiggin declares in his recent work Zombie Economics that
"Ideas are long lived, often outliving their originators and taking new and different forms. Some ideas
live on because they are useful. Others die and are forgotten. But even when they have proved themselves
wrong and dangerous, ideas are very hard to kill. Even after the evidence seems to have killed them,
they keep on coming back. ..."
"... These ideas are neither alive nor dead; rather…they are undead, or zombie, ideas." Bolshevism
or Trotskyism is one of those zombie ideas that keeps coming back in different forms. It has ideologically
reincarnated in the political disputations of the neoconservative movement. ..."
"... As soon as the Israel Lobby came along, as soon as the neoconservative movement began to
shape U.S. foreign policy, as soon as Israel began to dictate to the U.S. what ought to be done in the
Middle East, America was universally hated by the Muslim world. ..."
"... In that sense, the neoconservative movement as a political and intellectual movement represents
a fifth column in the United States in that it subtly and deceptively seeks to undermine what the Founding
Fathers have stood for and replace it with what the Founding Fathers would have considered horrible
foreign policies-policies which have contributed to the demise of the respect America once had. ..."
"... For example, when two top AIPAC officials-Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman-were caught passing
classified documents from the Pentagon to Israel, Gabriel Schoenfeld defended them. ..."
"... Israel has been spying on the United States for years using various Israeli or Jewish individuals,
including key Jewish neoconservative figures such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, who were under
investigation for passing classified documents to Israel. ..."
Kristol argues in his book The Neoconservative Persuasion that those Jewish intellectuals
did not forsake their heritage (revolutionary ideology) when they gave up Communism and other revolutionary
movements, but had to make some changes in their thinking. America is filled with such former Trotskyists
who unleashed an unprecedented foreign policy that led to the collapse of the American economy.
We have to keep in mind that America and much of the Western world were scared to death of Bolshevism
and Trotskyism in the 1920s and early 30s because of its subversive activity.
Noted Australian economist John Quiggin declares in his recent work Zombie Economics that
"Ideas are long lived, often outliving their originators and taking new and different forms. Some
ideas live on because they are useful. Others die and are forgotten. But even when they have proved
themselves wrong and dangerous, ideas are very hard to kill. Even after the evidence seems to have
killed them, they keep on coming back.
These ideas are neither alive nor dead; rather…they are undead, or zombie, ideas." Bolshevism
or Trotskyism is one of those zombie ideas that keeps coming back in different forms. It has ideologically
reincarnated in the political disputations of the neoconservative movement.
... ... ...
As it turns out, neoconservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute are largely
extensions of Trotskyism with respect to foreign policy. Other think tanks such as the Bradley Foundation
were overtaken by the neoconservative machine back in 1984.
Some of those double agents have been known to have worked with Likud-supporting Jewish groups
such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, an organization which has been known
to have "co-opted" several "non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel. It flew
out the retired general Jay Garner, now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq."
Philo-Semitic scholars Stephen Halper of Cambridge University and Jonathan Clarke of the CATO
Institute agree that the neoconservative agendas "have taken American international relations on
an unfortunate detour," which is another way of saying that this revolutionary movement is not what
the Founding Fathers signed up for, who all maintained that the United States would serve the American
people best by not entangling herself in alliances with foreign entities.
As soon as the Israel Lobby came along, as soon as the neoconservative movement began to shape
U.S. foreign policy, as soon as Israel began to dictate to the U.S. what ought to be done in the
Middle East, America was universally hated by the Muslim world.
Moreover, former secretary of defense Robert Gates made it clear to the United States that the
Israelis do not and should not have a monopoly on the American interests in the Middle East. For
that, he was chastised by neoconservative Elliott Abrams.
In that sense, the neoconservative movement as a political and intellectual movement represents
a fifth column in the United States in that it subtly and deceptively seeks to undermine what the
Founding Fathers have stood for and replace it with what the Founding Fathers would have considered
horrible foreign policies-policies which have contributed to the demise of the respect America once
had.
... ... ...
Israel has been spying on the United States for years using various Israeli or Jewish individuals,
including key Jewish neoconservative figures such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, who were under
investigation for passing classified documents to Israel.
The FBI has numerous documents tracing Israel's espionage in the U.S., but no one has come forward
and declared it explicitly in the media because most political pundits value mammon over truth.
For example, when two top AIPAC officials-Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman-were caught passing
classified documents from the Pentagon to Israel, Gabriel Schoenfeld defended them.
In the annual FBI report called "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage," Israel
is a major country that pops up quite often. This is widely known among CIA and FBI agents and U.S.
officials for years.
One former U.S. intelligence official declared, "There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of
Israeli activities directed against the United States. Anybody who worked in counterintelligence
in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active
countries targeting the United States.
They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations. People here as liaisons…
aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable."
"... Corruption happen everywhere, just look at US. They merely make it legal to bribe the politician,
it is call lobbying. Look at all those who cheated their clients by selling them CDOs and betting against
them. It became a financial worst crisis for the world, yet none of them was jailed and they all get
to keep the billions. ..."
Corruption happen everywhere, just look at US. They merely make it legal to bribe the politician,
it is call lobbying. Look at all those who cheated their clients by selling them CDOs and betting
against them. It became a financial worst crisis for the world, yet none of them was jailed and
they all get to keep the billions.
Estimate the cost to win 2016 president election = USD 1bn. Even Bush, not a front runner,
had already spend USD30millions. Contribution of fund in return for IOU favors, look like corruption
to me too.
NigelJ, 4 Dec 2015 10:53
some of this anti-corruption campaign would certainly not go amiss in the UK.
TheHighRoad isabey, 4 Dec 2015 09:29
Perhaps the difference is that many academics in the UK are contracted to do a certain number
of hours teaching and must support the university's reputation with research but are also permitted
- contractually - to work in industry and with NGOs to supplement their income and to expand their
knowledge of current practice to make their teaching and research more relevant. It isn't illegal
or even unusual or suspect and if you are envious of it I suggest you spend 8 years working your
way through an ordinary degree, a master's and a doctorate so that you too can participate in
it - though don't get your hopes up for "raking it in".
Oh, and they don't work in a system where corruption investigations are used as a pretext to
weed out "unreliable elements" who talk about dangerous things that might lead impressionable
young people to ask difficult questions about the government in a one-party state.
"... "Firstly, Ukraine is an energy-deficient country and the tendency we observe today will continue and develop: gas production in Ukraine will decline and consumption will grow. We proceed from the assumption that the Ukrainian economy will develop successfully. The present-day level of gas consumption clearly shows that Ukraine has not solved all of its economic problems. In this regard, gas supplies to Ukraine will increase in the medium and long term. Secondly, if a merger takes place, we will load Ukraine's gas transmission system to the extent possible and it surely means additional income that is significant for the Ukrainian budget. At the same time, if the Ukrainian gas transmission system is loaded with some 95 billion cubic meters of gas per year, we know well that it may deliver 120 and even 125 billion cubic meters with a particular level of investments in modernization and reconstruction, of course. And if small investments are made in new compressor stations and pipeline loops, we may probably speak of 140 billion cubic meters of gas. However, we realize that European gas consumption will grow. According to our estimates, gas demand in Europe may grow up to 130-140 billion cubic meters of gas by the turn of 2020." ..."
"... Remember the story with biogas, wonderful – 20 per cent by 2020, and mass media start writing that it will enable escaping from dependence on Russia. Then we find out that biogas is there, together with food supply problems, etc. Then we observed the European Union's wonderful program – "20-20-20". I think, there's no need of deciphering it – everyone knows about it. And again mass media say that it will enable reducing dependence on Gazprom and Russia. The same thing is with shale gas. First, no one will cope with shale gas transportation, because it is too expensive, add transport – and it is already a business with no prospects. I have a plea for mass media – would you please stop frightening Europe, stop frightening everyone around with Russia and Gazprom. For Europe it is a real blessing that it has such a powerful neighbor with such conventional gas reserves. Exploration of non-conventionals [N.B.: Non-conventional energy resources] may end with no results, as experience of certain countries shows. So let's live in peace and friendship and contribute to strengthening Russia's contacts and ties with the European Union and Ukraine . ..."
Turkish Stream is now officially cancelled. All the eggs are now in the same basket: Nord Stream
II. Hopefully the US/UK/Baltics/Poland front will not be able to stop it. Because otherwise Russia
is stuck with Ukraine as a transit country.
Well, I don't think they want to stop it. They want the gas the same as before – they just want
it on their own terms. Brussels wants to exercise control over whose gas goes through the pipeline,
so that if they are have a "spat" with Russia, they can stop orders of Russian gas and bring some
at-this-moment-unknown supplier's gas through the same pipeline, probably Azerbaijan.
Read
this 2011 press conference with Gazprom; I found it while looking for a layman's explanation
of what the Third Energy Package actually entails. Because it appears what is most unappealing
to it from Gazprom's point of view is that it limits vital investment in gas futures, considering
it would substantially restrict long-term contracts. They could be happy with you today, buying
off your competitors tomorrow. According to Brussels, that's healthy competition which ensures
the customer gets the best price, while Gazprom naturally prefers to deal in long-term contracts
which lock the customer in, although they are usually willing to talk out a deal if it looks like
the customer is really unhappy because unhappy customers are bad for business, even in the gas
industry.
Right away, you notice that Europe accepts long-term contracts, but nonetheless takes the position
that long-term capacity supply orders upset the market. As Gazprom correctly points out, these
two views cannot reasonably coexist.
In 2011, Gazprom was still considering a joint venture with NaftoGaz Ukraine, and intended
to actually increase gas transit through Ukraine while simultaneously building South Stream. They
were also considering a merger, and Miller said if that came about, Ukrainian gas consumers would
pay the same prices as Russia. Look how far they are away from that now – funny old world, innit?
Here was Miller's vision, at the time, for a Gazprom-NaftoGaz merger:
"Firstly, Ukraine is an energy-deficient country and the tendency we observe today will
continue and develop: gas production in Ukraine will decline and consumption will grow. We
proceed from the assumption that the Ukrainian economy will develop successfully. The present-day
level of gas consumption clearly shows that Ukraine has not solved all of its economic problems.
In this regard, gas supplies to Ukraine will increase in the medium and long term.
Secondly, if a merger takes place, we will load Ukraine's gas transmission system to the extent
possible and it surely means additional income that is significant for the Ukrainian budget.
At the same time, if the Ukrainian gas transmission system is loaded with some 95 billion cubic
meters of gas per year, we know well that it may deliver 120 and even 125 billion cubic meters
with a particular level of investments in modernization and reconstruction, of course. And
if small investments are made in new compressor stations and pipeline loops, we may probably
speak of 140 billion cubic meters of gas. However, we realize that European gas consumption
will grow. According to our estimates, gas demand in Europe may grow up to 130-140 billion
cubic meters of gas by the turn of 2020."
You can see, I'm sure, why Brussels didn't like it. Under the Third Energy Package, the operator
of the gas transit system will be elected by the European Union on a tender basis. You can see,
I'm sure, why Gazprom didn't like that. If the merger between Gazprom and NaftoGaz Ukraine had
come about, Ukrainians would have paid Russian domestic prices, in a word, forever.
What Europe's position boils down to is it wants a system whereby its suppliers do not own
anything of the transit system, and the operator could be anyone depending on who sucks up to
Europe the most, so that it can make its suppliers fight with one another and be assured of the
cheapest prices. Until that magical sugar-daddy supplier appears that can provide steady and sustained
competition to Russia, Europe is not in a very good bargaining position. But you bet that would
change fast if the western alliance could get rid of Assad, partition Syria and get a Qatari gas
pipeline laid across it.
Here's a poignant reminder of what might have been, which serves to point up who are the real
troublemakers:
"Remember the story with biogas, wonderful – 20 per cent by 2020, and mass media start
writing that it will enable escaping from dependence on Russia. Then we find out that biogas
is there, together with food supply problems, etc. Then we observed the European Union's wonderful
program – "20-20-20". I think, there's no need of deciphering it – everyone knows about it.
And again mass media say that it will enable reducing dependence on Gazprom and Russia. The
same thing is with shale gas. First, no one will cope with shale gas transportation, because
it is too expensive, add transport – and it is already a business with no prospects.
I have a plea for mass media – would you please stop frightening Europe, stop frightening
everyone around with Russia and Gazprom. For Europe it is a real blessing that it has such
a powerful neighbor with such conventional gas reserves. Exploration of non-conventionals [N.B.:
Non-conventional energy resources] may end with no results, as experience of certain countries
shows. So let's live in peace and friendship and contribute to strengthening Russia's contacts
and ties with the European Union and Ukraine."
See above. It is time for Russia to lay down the law. Russia can go without the $25 billion per
year of lost revenues. But whole EU economies will crash into epic depressions without this energy
supply. In other words, the EU is looking at TRILLIONS of DOLLARS in economic damage. The Brussels
Uncle Scam cocksuckers will have to justify their actions. Russia does not have to since it is
the vendor. If you are not happy, then shop the fuck elsewhere, idiots.
Russian president says Ankara will not 'get away with a tomato ban' in response to 'cynical
war crime'
... ... ...
The Russian president said he was still bemused by the Turkish decision to shoot down the
Su-24. He said: "Perhaps only Allah knows why they did this. And it seems Allah decided to punish
the ruling clique in Turkey by relieving them of their sense and judgment."
Russia has implemented a series of economic sanctions against Turkey, including banning fruit and
vegetable imports and ordering Russian tour operators not to send tourists to the country. Putin
emphasised that this limited response was not an attempt to move on and start afresh, however.
"There will not be a nervous, hysterical reaction, that would be dangerous for us and for the
whole world," he said. "We will not engage in sabre rattling. But if people think that after
carrying out a cynical war crime, killing our people, they'll get away with a tomato ban or some
limits in the construction sector, they're very wrong. We will keep remembering what they did.
And they will keep regretting it."
The day before, Russia's defence ministry had called journalists to a briefing at its command
centre, showing slides and satellite imagery claiming to show proof that Turkey was profiting
from the trade in Isis oil.
"A unified team of bandits and Turkish elites operates in the region to steal oil from their
neighbours," deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday. Erdoğan later dismissed
the accusations as "slander".
... ... ...
Putin again called for a unified coalition to fight terrorism, and said it was unacceptable to
delineate between different terrorist groups. The Russian airstrikes have hit many groups that
western countries do not consider terrorists. Putin also made it clear once again who he blames
for the current terrorist threat.
"Iraq, Libya and Syria have turned into zones of chaos and anarchy which threaten the whole
world," he said. "And of course we know why this happened. We know who wanted to change
inconvenient regimes, and crudely impose their rules. And what was the result? They made a mess,
ruined the states, turned different peoples against each other and then, as we say in Russia,
washed their hands of the places, opening the road for radicals, extremists and terrorists."
Earlier, during his address to the nation, the Evil One questioned the sanity of the
Turkish political leadership, stressing that Russia is nor criticising the Turkish nation for
the recent downturn in Russo-Turksh relationships.
marknesop, December 3, 2015 at 7:37 am
Washington will be delighted, as it was one of the hoped-for consequences of the major
downturn in relations. Hoped for by Washington and Brussels, I mean. Brussels will now ramp up
its rhetoric against Nord Stream II, and if the coalition building it have not got all their
ducks in a row the EC will be all too ready to put a stop to it. The objective will be leaving
Russia no option but to continue transit through Ukraine, because the transit fees are vital
to its solvency. The EU can't afford to give it $2 Billion a year for nothing for as far as
the eye can see.
kirill, December 3, 2015 at 2:13 pm
As I posted elsewhere, Russia needs to make a formal announcement that the transit of gas
via Ukraine will stop at the end of 2016 regardless of the state of alternative routes.
Brussels can then go and eat shit.
likbez, December 3, 2015 at 8:21 pm
It's a pretty tough situation for Putin. No friends anywhere. Everybody want a peace of
Russia economically or otherwise. The situation reminds me a Russian cruiser Varyag at the
Battle of Chemulpo Bay with the Japanese squadron of Admiral Uriu.
Fledging political alliance of Turkey and Ukraine is not a very good development. Also while
economic sanctions are not that damaging to Russia per se as they are for Turkey, they still
increase isolation of Russia. Exactly what the USA wanted from the very beginning.
So this whole incident with shooting down Russian Su-24 looks like another victory of the US
diplomacy in its efforts to isolate Russia. And it might well be a plot similar to MH17 plot,
if you wish. It does not matter if Erdogan acted on his own initiative or with gentle
encouragement. The net result is the same.
Also a new Saudi leadership is a pretty impulsive and aggressive folk. And the are definitely
adamantly anti-Russian.
You are burying the lede, which is Congressman Ed Royce's not-so veiled threat against Russia:
"I think what Vladimir Putin should think on, for a minute, is the fact that Moscow itself
IS a target. The attack on the Metro-Liner from Russia over Egypt clearly is another message from
ISIS. So, at this point what we would like to see is a recalibration on the part of the Russian
military. So that instead of attacking the Free Syrian Army and the more secular Syrian forces,
they should begin to attack ISIS. So far we haven't seen that."
Translation from American B.S. into plain talk:
"Putin: Stop attacking our guys, we know they are ISIS but we have to pretend they're not. If
you keep attacking them, we'll have them commit ever more terror attacks against the Russian people."
The USA is perhaps the worst choice on the planet to ask who is a "moderate rebel" and who
is ISIS, as witnessed by their
sad-sack training plan for moderate rebels which produced 5 or so whom they say are reliable
after spending $500 Million. Obviously they trained many more than 5, but they have no idea where
those people or their equipment are now. The real hot button in that article is the mention of
General Steven Groves and his operation to "oversee the suppression of assessments showing the
war on a perilous trajectory." That's what the American intelligence organs do now – blow smoke
up people's asses so they can't see reality.
"... "The cautious diplomatic stance of the older leading members of the royal family is being replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention," said the memo, which was titled " Saudi Arabia - Sunni regional power torn between foreign policy paradigm change and domestic policy consolidation" and was one and a half pages long. ..."
"... Since taking the throne early this year, King Salman has invested great power in Prince Mohammed, making him defense minister and deputy crown prince and giving him oversight of oil and economic policy. The sudden prominence of such a young and untested prince - he is believed to be about 30, and had little public profile before his father became king - has worried some Saudis and foreign diplomats. ..."
"... Prince Mohammed is seen as a driving force behind the Saudi military campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, which human rights groups say has caused thousands of civilian deaths. ..."
"... In its memo, the BND said that Saudi rivalry with Iran for supremacy in the Middle East, as well as Saudi dependency on the United States, were the main drivers of Saudi foreign policy. ..."
"... The Saudi-Iranian rivalry plays out throughout the region, the memo said, most recently and strikingly in the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. There, it said, "Saudi Arabia wants to prove that it is ready to take unprecedented military, financial and political risks in order not to fall into a disadvantageous position in the region." ..."
"... In Syria, Saudi Arabia's aim was always to oust President Bashar al-Assad, and that has not changed, the memo said. ..."
"... "The concentration of economic and foreign policy power on Mohammed bin Salman contains the latent danger that, in an attempt to establish himself in the royal succession while his father is still alive, he could overreach with expensive measures or reforms that would unsettle other members of the royal family and the population," the memo observed, adding, "That could overstrain the relations to friendly and above all to allied states in the region." ..."
The intelligence agency's memo risked playing havoc with Berlin's efforts to show solidarity with
France in its military campaign against the Islamic State and to push forward the tentative talks
on how to end the Syrian civil war. The Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, is due
to vote on Friday on whether to send reconnaissance planes, midair fueling capacity and a frigate
to the Middle East to support the French.
The memo was sent to selected German journalists on Wednesday. In it, the foreign intelligence
agency, known as the BND, offered an unusually frank assessment of recent Saudi policy.
"The cautious diplomatic stance of the older leading members of the royal family is being replaced
by an impulsive policy of intervention," said the memo, which was titled "Saudi
Arabia - Sunni regional power torn between foreign policy paradigm change and domestic policy
consolidation" and was one and a half pages long.
The memo said that King Salman and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman were trying to build reputations
as leaders of the Arab world.
Since taking the throne early this year, King Salman has invested great power in Prince Mohammed,
making him defense minister and deputy crown prince and giving him oversight of oil and economic
policy. The sudden prominence of such a young and untested prince - he is believed to be about 30,
and had little public profile before his father became king - has worried some Saudis and foreign
diplomats.
Prince Mohammed is seen as a driving force behind the Saudi military campaign against the Iranian-backed
Houthi rebels in Yemen, which human rights groups say has caused thousands of civilian deaths.
... ... ...
In its memo, the BND said that Saudi rivalry with Iran for supremacy in the Middle East, as well
as Saudi dependency on the United States, were the main drivers of Saudi foreign policy.
The Saudi-Iranian rivalry plays out throughout the region, the memo said, most recently and strikingly
in the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. There, it said, "Saudi Arabia wants to prove that it
is ready to take unprecedented military, financial and political risks in order not to fall into
a disadvantageous position in the region."
In Syria, Saudi Arabia's aim was always to oust President Bashar al-Assad, and that has not changed,
the memo said.
But it suggested that the recent shift in Saudi leadership has added new factors in the Middle
East. "The concentration of economic and foreign policy power on Mohammed bin Salman contains the
latent danger that, in an attempt to establish himself in the royal succession while his father is
still alive, he could overreach with expensive measures or reforms that would unsettle other members
of the royal family and the population," the memo observed, adding, "That could overstrain the relations
to friendly and above all to allied states in the region."
"... Because you live in the real world, you know that NATO knew exactly where Gaddafi was at all times and that he was in that convoy attempting to escape NATOs bombing raid. Further, you wont be surprised to learn that many of these vehicles were pickup trucks that really posed no military threat to NATO. The point was to kill Gaddafi, and numerous resources were brought to bear on that mission. ..."
"... Gaddafis killing was the assassination of a foreign leader by Western interests. In this case, Gaddafi was just yet another target in a long line of leaders that attempted to keep those same interests at bay. ..."
"... While imperfect by many standards, all of these countries were stable and increasingly prosperous before outside interests came in and turned them into a living nightmare. ..."
"... It is this context that explains why such reactionary and violent groups as ISIS arose. They are the natural response of violated people seeking to assert some control over lives that otherwise have no hope and even less meaning. ..."
"... Islamic State militants have consolidated control over central Libya, carrying out summary executions, beheadings and amputations, the United Nations said on Monday in a further illustration of the North African states descent into anarchy. ..."
"... All sides in Libyas multiple armed conflicts are committing breaches of international law that may amount to war crimes, including abductions, torture and the killing of civilians, according to a U.N. report. ..."
"... Islamic State (IS) has gained control over swathes of territory, committing gross abuses including public summary executions of individuals based on their religion or political allegiance , the joint report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. Support Mission in Libya said. ..."
"... The U.N. had documented IS executions in their stronghold city of Sirte, in central Libya along the Mediterranean coast, and in Derna to the east, from which they were later ousted by local militias. Victims included Egyptian Copts, Ethiopians, Eritreans and a South Sudanese, the report said. ..."
To understand what's happening in Syria right now, you have to understand the tactics and motivations
of the US and NATO -- parties sharing interwoven aims and goals in the Middle East/North African
(MENA) region.
While the populations of Europe and the US are fed raw propaganda about the regional aims involved,
the reality is far different.
Where the propaganda claims that various bad dictators have to be taken out, or that democracy
is the goal, neither have anything at all to do with what's actually happening or has happened
in the region.
For starters, we all know that if oil fields were not at stake then the West would care much much
less about MENA affairs.
But a lot of outside interests do care. And their aims certainly and largely include controlling
the region's critical energy resources. There's a lot of concern over whether Russia or China will
instead come to dominate these last, best oil reserves on the planet.
Further, we can dispense with the idea that the US and NATO have any interest at all in human
rights in this story. If they did, then they'd at least have to admit that their strategies and tactics
have unleashed immeasurable suffering, as well as created the conditions for lots more. But it would
be silly to try and argue about or understand regional motivations through the lenses of human rights
or civilian freedoms -- as neither applies here.
Divide And Conquer
Instead, the policies in the MENA region are rooted in fracturing the region so that it will be
easier to control.
That's a very old tactic; first utilized to a great extent by Britain starting back in the 1700s.
Divide and conquer. There's a reason that's a well-worn catch phrase: it's hundreds of years old.
But to get a handle on the level of depravity involved, I think it useful to examine what happened
in Libya in 2011 when NATO took out Muamar Gaddafi and left the country a broken shell -- as was
intended.
I cannot really give you a good reason for NATO involving itself in taking out Gaddafi. I only
have bad ones.
The official reason was that after the Arab Spring uprising in Libya in early 2011 (with plenty
of evidence of Western influences in fanning those flames) things got ugly and protesters were shot.
This allowed the UN to declare that it needed to protect civilians, and the ICC to charge Gaddafi
with crimes against humanity, declaring that he needed to stand trial.
Here's how it went down:
On 27 June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law
Abdullah Senussi, head of state security, for charges concerning crimes against humanity.[268]Libyan officials rejected the ICC, claiming that it had "no legitimacy whatsoever" and highlighting
that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".[269]
That month, Amnesty International published their findings, in which they asserted
that many of the accusations of mass human rights abuses made against Gaddafist forces lacked
credible evidence, and were instead fabrications of the rebel forces which had been readily
adopted by the western media.
After the ICC's indictment, it was a hop, skip and a jump to declaring a NATO-enforced 'no fly
zone' over Libya to protect civilians.
From there it was just a straight jump to NATO actively shooting anything related to the Gaddafi
government. NATO had thereby chosen sides and was directly supporting the rebellion.
The pattern in play here is always the same: cherry-picked events are used as a pretext to support
the side seeking to topple the existing government and thereby leave a sectarian wasteland to flourish
in the inevitable power vacuum.
If you are like most people in the West, you know almost nothing of any of this context. It's
not well reported. And Libya is rarely in the news even though it's going through increasingly desperate
times.
I found a speech given by Gaddafi a few months before he was killed to be especially compelling
and revealing. I will reproduce it in its entirety here:
For 40 years, or was it longer, I can't remember, I did all I could to give people houses,
hospitals, schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland
from the desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned
daughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped
my brothers and sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.
I did all I could to help people understand the concept of real democracy, where people's committees
ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes,
new suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They
told Americans and other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and "freedom" never realizing
it was a cut throat system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with
those words, never realizing that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no
free housing, no free education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long
lines to get soup.
No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the
son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since Salah-al-Deen,
when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps
I tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination - from thieves who would steal
from us.
Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama
wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our
free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery,
called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations
run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer. So, there is no alternative for me, I
must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, the path that has
made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African
and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.
I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands
who are all my children, then so be it.
Let this testament be my voice to the world, that I stood up to crusader attacks of NATO, stood
up to cruelty, stood up to betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitions, and that
I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light. When
others were building castles, I lived in a modest house, and in a tent. I never forgot my youth
in Sirte, I did not spend our national treasury foolishly, and like Salah-al-Deen, our great Muslim
leader, who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took little for myself...
In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy", but they know the truth yet continue to lie,
they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my vision, my
path, is, and has been clear and for my people and that I will fight to my last breath to keep
us free, may Allah almighty help us to remain faithful and free.
Gaddafi's great crime seems to be giving away too much oil wealth to his people. Was he a strongman?
Yes, but you have to be to rule in that region right now. Was he the worst strong man? No, not by
a long shot.
As bad as he was, at least he didn't kill a million Iraqis on trumped up charges of non-existent
weapons of mass destruction. Nor was he chopping off 50 heads per week and stoning females for adultery
as is the case with Saudi Arabia right now.
But again, whether he killed protestors or not, or committed war crimes or not, is irrelevant
to the power structure. What mattered was that he had locked out Western interests, and instead used
his country's oil wealth to provide free or extremely cheap health care, education and housing to
a wide swath of Libyans.
So let's cut to the murder scene. Here's how it went down:
At around 08:30 local time on 20 October, Gaddafi, his army chief Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, his
security chief Mansour Dhao, and a group of loyalists attempted to escape in a convoy of 75 vehicles.[7][8]A Royal Air Force reconnaissance aircraft spotted the convoy moving at high speed, after NATO
forces intercepted a satellite phone call made by Gaddafi.[9]
NATO aircraft then fired on 11 of the vehicles, destroying one. A U.S. Predator drone
operated from a base near Las Vegas[8]
fired the first missiles at the convoy, hitting its target about 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of Sirte.
Moments later, French Air Force Rafale fighter jets continued the bombing.[10]
The NATO bombing immobilized much of the convoy and killed dozens of loyalist fighters.
Following the first strike, some 20 vehicles broke away from the main group and continued moving
south. A second NATO airstrike damaged or destroyed 10 of these vehicles. According to the
Financial Times, Free Libya units on the ground also struck the convoy.[11]
According to their statement, NATO was not aware at the time of the strike that Gaddafi
was in the convoy. NATO stated that in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1973, it does
not target individuals but only military assets that pose a threat. NATO later learned, "from
open sources and Allied intelligence," that Gaddafi was in the convoy and that the strike likely
contributed to his capture.[11]
To believe NATO, it had no idea Gaddafi was in that convoy (honest!), but just managed
to have a Predator drone handy as well as a large number of jets armed for ground targets (not anti-aircraft
missiles, as a no-fly zone might imply). It merely struck all of these vehicles over and over again
in their quest to kill everyone on board because they were "military assets that posed a threat."
Because you live in the real world, you know that NATO knew exactly where Gaddafi was at all
times and that he was in that convoy attempting to escape NATO's bombing raid. Further, you won't
be surprised to learn that many of these vehicles were pickup trucks that really posed no military
threat to NATO. The point was to kill Gaddafi, and numerous resources were brought to bear on that
mission.
Gaddafi's killing was the assassination of a foreign leader by Western interests. In this
case, Gaddafi was just yet another target in a long line of leaders that attempted to keep those
same interests at bay.
After NATO was finished making a mess of Libya by taking out Gaddafi and leaving a right proper
mess of a power vacuum, it simply departed -- leaving the country to fend for itself. Libya descended,
of course, into an outright civil war and has remained ever since a hotbed of sectarian violence
and increasing ISIS control and presence.
If NATO/US had to follow the Pier I rule of "you break it, you buy it" they would still be in
Libya offering money and assistance as the country settles down and begins the long process of rebuilding.
But no such luck. That's absolutely not how they operate. It's disaster capitalism in action.
The idea is to break things apart and then make money off of the pieces. It's not to help
people.
Otherwise, how do we explain these images?
While imperfect by many standards, all of these countries were stable and increasingly prosperous
before outside interests came in and turned them into a living nightmare.
It is this context that explains why such reactionary and violent groups as ISIS arose. They
are the natural response of violated people seeking to assert some control over lives that otherwise
have no hope and even less meaning.
I'm not justifying ISIS; only explaining the context that led to its rise.
Speaking of which, let's turn back to Libya:
ISIS is tightening its grip in Libya
Nov 15, 2015
GENEVA (Reuters) - Islamic State militants have consolidated control over central Libya,
carrying out summary executions, beheadings and amputations, the United Nations said on Monday
in a further illustration of the North African state's descent into anarchy.
All sides in Libya's multiple armed conflicts are committing breaches of international
law that may amount to war crimes, including abductions, torture and the killing of civilians,
according to a U.N. report.
Islamic State (IS) has gained control over swathes of territory, "committing gross abuses
including public summary executions of individuals based on their religion or political allegiance",
the joint report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. Support Mission in
Libya said.
The U.N. had documented IS executions in their stronghold city of Sirte, in central Libya
along the Mediterranean coast, and in Derna to the east, from which they were later ousted by
local militias. Victims included Egyptian Copts, Ethiopians, Eritreans and a South Sudanese, the
report said.
Some were accused of "treason", others of same-sex relations, but none were given due legal
process, according to the report, which covered the year through October.
Four years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is locked in a conflict between two
rival governments - an official one in the east and a self-declared one controlling the capital
Tripoli - and the many armed factions that back them.
After that atrocious summary, how bad does life under Gaddafi sound now? Again, he was targeted
for execution by Western interests and the resulting mess is of little surprise to anybody with even
modest curiosity about how violent overthrows tend to work out in the MENA region.
But where is the UN security council denouncing the war crimes? And where is the ICC leveling
crimes against humanity charges? Nowhere. There's no more Western political interest in Libya now
that it has been broken apart.
As they say in the military: once is bad luck, twice is a coincidence, but three times is enemy
action. This pattern of eliminating "a very bad man" and leaving the country in a complete mess has
happened three times of late, with Syria targeted to be the fourth. So enemy action it is.
ISIS and other extreme jihadist groups arose because of brutal conditions that made such harsh
interpretations of ancient religious texts make sense by comparison. When you have nothing left to
believe in, one's belief system can compensate by becoming rather inflexible.
I know I have greatly simplified a terribly complex dynamic, but -- speaking of beliefs -- I don't
believe that terrorists are born, I believe they are raised. When one has nothing left to lose, then
anything becomes possible, including strapping on a suicide belt and flicking the switch.
What I am saying is that this is not a battle between Christians and Muslims, nor is it a battle
between good and evil, both characterizations that I've read recently in great abundance. That's
all nonsense for the masses.
This is about resources and true wealth that is being siphoned from the people who have had the
misfortune to be born on top of it, and towards other regions with greater power and reach.
There's nothing different in what I am reading today from what the British redcoats did in India
from the late 1700's throughout the 1800's. Their military might assured that the East India Tea
Company could continue to extract resources from the locals.
At the time the locals were called heathens, implying they were subhuman and therefore could be
safely dispatched. Now they are called terrorists -- same thing. Dehumanize your foe to help rationalize
one's behaviors. It's a tried and true practice of war propaganda.
How This Affects You
While we might be tempted to sit in our Western environs, secure in the idea that at least we
aren't 'over there' where all the bad things are happening, it would be a mistake to think that this
turmoil will not impact you.
I'm not talking about the ultra-remote chance of being a victim of blow-back terrorism either.
I am referring to the idea that it would be a mistake to think that any government(s) that think
nothing of ruining entire MENA countries will hesitate to throw anybody else under the bus that gets
in their way.
Ben Bernanke gave no thought to throwing granny under the bus in order to help the big banks get
even bigger. He willingly and knowing transferred over a trillion dollars away from savers and handed
it to the big banks.
Similarly, we shouldn't expect enlightened behavior to emerge from the shadows of leadership once
things get even dicer on the world stage. In fact, we should expect the opposite.
It would be a mistake to think that powers in charge would not turn their malign intent inwards
toward their own populace if/when necessary. Today it's Syria, yesterday it was Libya, but tomorrow
it might be us.
The people of France recently got a small taste of the horror that has been visited upon the people
of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. And while I have no interest in seeing any more violence anywhere,
perhaps the people of France will finally begin to ask what happened and why. I don't mean the fine
details of the night of the massacre, but how it came to be considered a 'thing to do' at all by
the people who did it. (For those unaware, France has been particularly involved for years in fomenting
revolt within Syria)
Conclusion
My intention in stringing these dots together is so that we can have an informed discussion about
what's happening in Syria and the Middle East at large. I am not at all interested in trying to understand
events through the framing lenses of religion and/or 'terrorism', both of which are tools of distraction
in my experience.
Instead, I want to understand the power dynamics at play. And to try to peel back the layers,
to understand why the powers that be consider this region so important at this moment in history.
I think they know as well as we do that the shale oil revolution is not a revolution at all but
a retirement party for an oil industry that has given us everything we hold economically dear but
is on its last legs.
I think that the power structures of the next twenty years are going to be utterly shaped by energy
- who has it, who needs it and who's controlling it.
Saudi Arabia is acting increasingly desperate here and I think we know why. They have a saying
there: "My father rode a camel, I drove a car, my son flies a jet and his son will ride a camel."
They know as well as anyone that their oil wealth will run out someday; and so, too, will the
West's interest in them. With no giant military to protect them, the royalty in Saudi Arabia should
have some serious concerns about the future.
Heck, it's even worse than that:
Saudi Wells Running Dry -- of Water -- Spell End of Desert Wheat
Nov 3, 2015
Saudi Arabia became a net exporter of wheat in 1984 from producing almost none in the
1970s. The self-sufficiency program became a victim of its own success, however, as it quickly
depleted aquifers that haven't been filled since the last Ice Age.
In an unexpected U-turn, the government said in 2008 it was phasing out the policy, reducing
purchases of domestic wheat each year by 12.5 percent and bridging the gap progressively with
imports.
The last official local harvest occurred in May, although the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization projects that a small crop of about metric 30,000 tons for traditional specialty
bakery products will "prevail" in 2016. At its peak in 1992, Saudi Arabia produced 4.1 million
tons of wheat and was one of the world's top 10 wheat exporters.
The Saudis did something very unwise - they pumped an aquifer filled over 10,000 years ago and
used it to grow wheat in the desert. Now their wells are running dry and they have no more water.
And yet their population is expanding rapidly even as their oil fields deplete. There's a very
bad intersection for Saudi Arabia, and the rulers know it.
It helps to explain their recent actions of lashing out against long-standing regional foes and
helps to explain the increasing desperation of their moves to help destabilize (and even bomb) their
neighbors.
My point here is that as resources become tight, the ruling powers can be expected to act in increasingly
desperate ways. This is a tenet of the Long Emergency of which James Kunstler wrote.
The only response that makes any sense to me, at the individual level, is to reduce your needs
and increase your resilience.
This is something we cover in great detail in our new book,
Prosper!: How
To Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting, so I won't go into all the details
here. Instead, my goal is to help cast a clarifying light on recent events and add some necessary
detail that can help us more fully appreciate what's happening around the world and why taking prudent
preparations today is becoming increasingly urgent.
"... Underscoring that contention is CHP lawmaker Eren Erdem who says he, like Moscow, will soon provide proof of Erdogan's role in the smuggling of Islamic State oil. I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists," Erdem said at a press conference on Thursday (see more from Sputnik ). ..."
"... There is one company, headquartered in Erbil, which in 2012 acquired oil tankers, and which is currently being bombarded by Russian aircraft," Erdem said. "I am now studying this companys records. It has partners in Turkey, and I am checking them for links to Albayrak. ..."
"... Note that this is entirely consistent with what we said last week , namely that in some cases, ISIS takes advantage of the Kurdish oil transport routes, connections, and infrastructure in Turkey. It will certainly be interesting to see if theres a connection between Albayrak, the energy ministry, and Bilal Erdogans BMZ Group. ..."
"... Many loose ends now for Erdogan popping up. How long he can play whack-a-mole until one illuminates paper trail implication between ISIS and Erdogans masters like McCain, Graham, Nuland? ..."
"... Maybe Erdogan will come up with a massive distraction that makes oil-thievery insignificant. Hope not. ..."
Underscoring that contention is CHP lawmaker Eren Erdem who says he, like Moscow, will soon provide
proof of Erdogan's role in the smuggling of Islamic State oil. "I have been able to establish
that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh
terrorists," Erdem said at a press conference on Thursday (see
more
from Sputnik).
Berat Albayrak is Erodan's son-in-law and is Turkey's Minister of Energy and
Natural Resources.
Erdem isn't the only person to mention Albayrak this week. Recall that in his opening remarks
at the dramatic Russian MoD presentation on Wednesday Deputy Minister of Defence Anatoly Antonov
said the following:
"No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of
Turkey is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-appointed Minister
of Energy? What a brilliant family business!"
"There is one company, headquartered in Erbil, which in 2012 acquired oil tankers, and
which is currently being bombarded by Russian aircraft," Erdem said. "I am now studying
this company's records. It has partners in Turkey, and I am checking them for links to Albayrak."
Note that this is entirely consistent with
what we said last week, namely that in some cases, ISIS takes advantage of the Kurdish oil transport
routes, connections, and infrastructure in Turkey. It will certainly be interesting to see
if there's a connection between Albayrak, the energy ministry, and Bilal Erdogan's BMZ Group.
If you know anything about Erdogan, you know that he doesn't take kindly to this kind of thing
and as Erdem goes on to account, he's already been the subject of a smear campaign:
"Today, the Takvim newspaper called me an American puppet, an Israeli agent, a supporter
of the [Kurdish] PKK, and the instigator of a coup…all in the same sentence. I am inclined to
view this attack on me as an attempt to belittle my significance, to attack my reputation in the
eyes in the public, given that my investigation is a real threat to the government. Such
a sharply negative reaction suggests that my assumptions are fair, and I am moving in the right
direction to find the truth."
The lawmaker says that type of attack has "only convinced [him] further on the need to carry this
investigation through to the end."
In the meantime, we can only hope that, for the sake of exposing the truth, "the end" doesn't
end up being a Turkish jail cell, or worse for Erdem.
Troll Magnet
Do they make nail guns in Turkey?
Truther
Yep, with top brands for JPM, Goldman, RBS, WF, CITI and Deutche. They even self point at
you too.
Baby Bladeface
Many loose ends now for Erdogan popping up.
How long he can play whack-a-mole until one illuminates paper trail implication between ISIS and
Erdogan's masters like McCain, Graham, Nuland?
o r c k
Maybe Erdogan will come up with a "massive" distraction that makes oil-thievery insignificant.
Hope not.
An old and close, but very conservative and increasingly out of touch with reality friend of
mine posted a video some days ago on Facebook. He indicated that he thought it was both funny
and also insightful. It seemed highly suspicious to me, so I googled it and found that the
person who uploaded it onto you tube stated in the comments on it that it is a spoof.
Here is a link that discusses why it is known it is a spoof as well as linking to the video itself
and its comments. It has reportedly been widely distributed on the internet by many conservatives
who think it is for real, and when I pointed out it is a spoof, my friend defriended me from Facebook.
I am frustrated.
So, for those who do not view it, it purports to show a talk show in Egypt
where a brief clip of Obama speaking last May to graduating military officers about how climate change
is and will be a serious national security issue, something the Pentagon has claimed. He did
not say it was the most serious such issue, and at least in the clip he said nothing about Daesh/ISIS/ISIL,
although of course he has said a lot about it and not only has US drones attacking it but reportedly
we have "boots on the ground" now against them in the form of some Special Ops.
So, the video then goes back to the supposed talk show where they are speaking in Arabic with
English subtitles. According to these subtitels, which are partly accurate translations but
also wildly inaccurate in many places (my Arabic is good enough that I have parsed out what is what
there) the host asks, "Is he insane?" A guest suggests he is on drugs. Another claims
he just does what Michelle says and that his biceps are small. Finally a supposed retired general
pounds the table and denounces him over Libya policy (that part is for real, although his name is
never mentioned) and suggests that Americans should act to remove him from office. Again,
conservative commentators have found hilarious and very insightful, with this even holding among
commenters to the video aware that it is a mistranslated spoof. Bring these guys on more.
Obviously they would be big hits on Fox News.
So, I would like to simply comment further on why Egyptians would be especially upset about Libya,
but that them being so against the US is somewhat hypocritical (I also note that there is reason
to believe that the supposed general is not a general). Of course Libya is just to the west
of Egypt with its eastern portion (Cyrenaica under Rome) often ruled by whomever was ruling Egypt
at various times in the past. So there is a strong cultural-historical connection. It
is understandable that they would take Libyan matters seriously, and indeed things in Libya have
turned into a big mess.
However, the move to bring in outside powers to intervene against Qaddafi in 2011 was instigated
by an Egyptian, Abu Moussa. This was right after Mubarak had fallen in the face of massive
demonstrations in Egypt. Moussa was both leader of the Arab League and wanting to run for President
of Egypt. He got nowhere with the latter, but he did get somewhere with getting
the rest of the world to intervene in Libya. He got the Arab League to support such an
intervention, with that move going to the UN Security Council and convincing Russia and China to
abstain on the anti-Qaddafi measure. Putin has since complained that those who intervened,
UK and France most vigorously with US "leading from behind" on the effort.went beyond the UN mandate.
But in any case, Qaddafi was overthrown, not to be replaced by any stable or central power, with
Libya an ongoing mess that has remained fragmented since, especially between its historically separate
eastern and western parts, something I have posted on here previously.
So, that went badly, but Egyptians blaming the US for this seems to me to be a bit much, pretty
hypocritical. It happens to be a fact that the US and Obama are now very unpopular in Egypt.
I looked at a poll from a few months ago, and the only nations where the US and Obama were viewed
less favorably (although a few not polled such as North Korea) were in order: Russia, Palestinian
Territories, Belarus, Lebanon, Iran, and Pakistan, with me suspecting there is now a more favorable
view in Iran since the culmination of the nuclear deal. I can appreciate that many Egyptians
are frustrated that the US supported an election process that did not give them Moussa or El-Baradei,
but the Muslim Brotherhood, who proceeded to behave badly, leading to them being overthrown by an
new military dictatorship with a democratic veneer, basically a new improved version of the Mubarak
regime, with the US supporting it, if somewhat reluctantly.
Yes, this is all pretty depressing, but I must say that ultimately the Egyptians are responsible
for what has gone down in their own nation. And even if those Egyptian commentators, whoever
they actually are, are as angry about Obama as they are depicted as being, the fact is that Obama
is still more popular there than was George W. Bush at the same time in his presidency, something
all these US conservatives so enamored of this bizarre video seem to conveniently forget.
Addenda, 5:10 PM:
1) The people on that video come across almost like The Three Stooges, which highlights
the comedic aspect that even fans of Obama are supposed to appreciate, although it does not add to
the credibility of the remarks of those so carrying on like a bunch of clowns.
2) Another reason Egyptians may be especially upset about the situation in Libya is that
indeed Daesh has a foothold in a port city not too far from the Egyptian border in Surt, as reported
as the top story today in the NY Times.
3) Arguably once the rest of the world got in, the big problem was a failure to follow
through with aiding establishing a central unified government, although that was always going to
be a problem, something not recognized by all too many involved, including Abu Moussa. As it
was once his proposal got going, it was then Sec. of State Hillary Clinton who was the main person
leading the charge for the US to get in over the reluctance of Obama. This was probably her
biggest mistake in all this, even though most Republicans think the irrelevant sideshow of the unfortunate
incident in Benghazi is the big deal.
4) Needless to say, Republican views at the time of the intervention were just completely
incoherent, as symbolized at one point by Senator Lindsey Graham, who within the space of a single
sentence simultaneously argued for the US to do nothing and also to go in full force with the proverbial
"boots on the ground."
Further Addendum, 7:10 PM:
One of the pieces of evidence given that supposedly shows that the video
is a spoof is that the supposed retired Brigadier General Mahmoud Mansour cannot be found if
one googles his name, except in connection with this video. There are some other Egyptians
named Mansour who show up, but this guy does not. However, it occurs to me that he might be
for real, but simply obscure. After all, Brigadier is the lowest rank of General, one star,
with Majors being two star, Lieutenants being three star (even though Majors are above Lieutenants),
and with four and five star not having any other rank assigned to them. Furthermore, Egypt
has a large military that has run the country for decades, so there may well be a lot of these Brigadier
Generals, with many of them amounting to nothing. So, if he is for real, his claim to fame
will be from jumping up and down, pounding on a table and calling for the overthrow of the POTUS.
Yep. I sometimes think that the history of the Arab conquest of East Roman (Byzantine) provinces
is purposefully ignored because it doesn't fit into a Western narrative of what Arab Muslim peoples
are like.
The modern Islamic fundamentalist movements we see today are actually a fairly recent invention
-- Wahhabism for example originated in the 18th century. And their rise to dominance is largely
due to meddling by Western governments, which backed these groups to prevent Soviet expansion
into the Middle East and southern Asia and to undermine nationalist movements that might oppose
Western interests.
Here's the evidence that the USA rejects. I particularly enjoyed the
satellite imagery of the "ISIS oil hub", at which were parked 3,000 oil
trucks. Apparently it escaped detection by the USA and its eagle-eyed
coalition. Does it seem realistic that a country which was offered a
major and legitimate pipeline deal would rather move its oil around in
thousands of tanker trucks? If the oil trucking business were benefiting
Assad's regime, don't you think ISIS would have blown it sky-high by now?
It's in a region they control and apparently in the middle of open
ground, completely unguarded.
The battle lines have been drawn in yet
another field of conflict – Russia aims to take down Erdogan, and
Washington aims to keep him in his position. It remains to be seen just
how embarrassing that will become.
Moscow is
not backing away at all from accusations that Erdogan's family is
personally involved in receiving and trafficking in ISIS oil. In a
phenomenon pointed out by others of late, Yahoo comments are now
overwhelmingly supportive of Russia on these issues. Not only that,
mainstream news are
picking up the accusation rapidly. The USA may reject Russia's evidence,
but we knew they would do that anyway – the USA would reject a signed
confession by Erdogan if they got it from Russia. I don't know why Moscow
even bothers to show evidence to the Americans, it would do far better to
approach Europeans – especially Germany and France – with its proof. If it
could convince Germany, the USA would look a lot more foolish if it said it
was all more Russian propaganda and lies.
The USA will shield Erdogan for
so long as it can, because his country is in a tremendous strategic position
and is studded with NATO military installations. Washington certainly does
not want to be confronted with a leadership transition it cannot
micromanage. It might throw Erdogan under the bus, but not until it has
identified and groomed a successor.
It is also significant that rather than groveling for mercy, Russia
continues to attack the alliance's credibility, and it is scoring hits.
The comment with the most "likes" on a yahoo article on Russian claiming
that Turkey is buying ISIS oil (lost the link):
" 542 – likes
First it does not require a high school education to understand in order for
ISIS to sell any oil from captured oil fields and or refineries it must have
buyers of said oil. Our govt claims to watch everyone and know everything
yet with all their tax payer space observations, massive fleet of drones to
track ants in the sand they cannot figure out where all the oil goes to fund
ISIS?
Our govt is intentionally not stopping this oil from being sold and our
leaders aware of this need to be exposed then put on trial then executed. In
fact political figures in our country need to be facing firing squads
monthly until they tell the truth and serve just our citizens. This in turn
makes for a huge employment opportunity both in firing squads and new
politicians."
The European Union voted to
give itself permission to buy oil from "Syrian rebels" to help them
overthrow Assad. The only stipulations of who could not benefit
from it were "regime-associated" individuals and companies. The agency
that must be consulted – the Syrian National Coalition – is based in
Turkey and its president is chummy with Erdogan. Come on. Washington is
ready to indict and convict Moscow on a hell of a lot less evidence than
this on any day you care to name.
…U.S. officials say coalition air strikes have destroyed hundreds of
IS oil trucks while the Russian campaign has mainly targeted opponents of
the Syrian government who are not from Islamic State, which is also known
as ISIL.
"The irony of the Russians raising this concern is that there's plenty
of evidence to indicate that the largest consumer of ISIL oil is actually
Bashar al-Assad and his regime, a regime that only remains in place
because it is being propped up by the Russians," White House spokesman
Josh Earnest said.
The State Department's Toner said U.S. information was that Islamic
State was selling oil at the wellheads to middlemen who were involved in
smuggling it across the frontier into Turkey…
…The ministry said the Western route took oil produced at fields near
the Syrian city of Raqqa to the settlement of Azaz on the border with
Turkey.
From there the columns of tanker trucks pass through the Turkish town
of Reyhanli, the ministry said, citing what it said were satellite
pictures of hundreds of such trucks moving through the border crossing
without obstruction.
"There is no inspection of the vehicles carried out … on the Turkish
side," said Rudskoy.
Some of the smuggled cargoes go to the Turkish domestic market, while
some is exported via the Turkish Mediterranean ports of Iskenderun and
Dortyol, the ministry said.
Another main route for smuggled oil, according to the ministry, runs
from Deir Ez-zour in Syria to the Syrian border crossing at Al-Qamishli.
It said the trucks then took the crude for refining at the Turkish city
of Batman….
…The defence ministry officials said the information they released
on Wednesday was only part of the evidence they have in their possession,
and that they would be releasing further intelligence in the next days
and weeks.
####
I can't wait for that twitter evidence from the State Department and
the Pentagon. It should be devastating.
"... It was agreed that the Turkish army would be allowed to penetrate Syrian territory, within a limit of 8 kilometres, in order to ensure that the PKK could not fire mortars from Syria. ..."
"... Since the beginning of the current aggression against Syria, the Turkish army has used and abused this privilege - no longer to prevent attacks by the PKK, but to set up training camps for jihadists. ..."
"... In October 2015, when the Russian military campaign was just starting, and Salih Muslim was beginning the operation of forced Kurdisation of Northern Syria, the famous Turkish whistle-blower, Fuat Avni, announced via Twitter that Turkey was preparing the destruction of a Russian aircraft. This occurred on the 24th November. ..."
At the end of the Turkish civil war, Turkey threatened to invade Syria with the help of NATO
if it continued to offer asylum to the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcallan. President Hafez
el-Assad thus asked Öcallan to find another refuge, and was obliged to conclude an oral agreement
with Turkey. It was agreed that the Turkish army would be allowed to penetrate Syrian
territory, within a limit of 8 kilometres, in order to ensure that the PKK could not fire mortars
from Syria.
Since the beginning of the current aggression against Syria, the Turkish army has used and
abused this privilege - no longer to prevent attacks by the PKK, but to set up training camps for
jihadists.
In October 2015, when the Russian military campaign was just starting, and Salih Muslim was
beginning the operation of forced Kurdisation of Northern Syria, the famous Turkish
whistle-blower, Fuat Avni, announced via Twitter that Turkey was preparing the destruction of a
Russian aircraft. This occurred on the 24th November.
From the perspective of the Third Syrian War [1], the attack was designed to send a message to
Russia in order to scare it into defending only Damascus and Lattakia, leaving the rest of the
country in the hands of Turkey and its allies.
Technically, the aerial defence of Turkey, like that of all NATO members, is co-ordinated by
the CAOC in Torrejón (Spain). The chief of the Turkish air force, General Abidin Ünal, should
therefore have given advance warning of his decision to CAOC commander General Rubén García
Servert. We do not know if he did so [2]. In any case, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan confirmed
that he himself had validated the order to destroy the Russian plane.
The Russian chief of staff had provided NATO with the flight plans of their aircraft in advance,
so that neither the Alliance nor Turkey could ignore the fact that the plane was Russian, despite
Turkish allegations to the contrary. Besides this, a NATO AWACS had taken off beforehand from the
Greek base in Aktion (close to Preveza) in order to survey the area [3].
The Russian army bombarded the Sultan Abdülhamid Brigade – from the name of the last Ottoman
sultan, infamous for organising the massacre of Oriental Christians. Since the beginning of the
war against Syria, the Turkish secret services have never stopped supplying weapons to the
Turkmen militias in Northern Syria, and overseeing their operations. The Turkish Press has
documented the transfer of at least 2,000 truck-loads of weapons and ammunition - which President
Erdoğan has admitted [4] – the majority of which was immediately distributed to Al-Qaïda by the
Turkmen militias. In particular, in 2011, these militias dismantled the 80,000 factories in
Aleppo, the Syrian economic capital, and sent the machine tools to Turkey [5]. So, contrary to
Turkish allegations, the Russian bombing was not intended to target the Turkmen, but effectively
to destroy a terrorist group guilty of organised pillage, according to the definition in
international conventions [6]. The Russian bombardment had provoked the flight of 1,500 civilians
and caused vigourous protests by Turkey [7], which addressed a letter to the Security Council
[8].
The Turkish – not Syrian – jihadist, member of the Grey Woves, Alparslan Çelik, is commander of
the Turkmen militias in Syria.
The main leader of the Turkmen militias in Syria is Alparslan Çelik, a member of the Grey Wolves,
the Turkish neo-fascist party, which is historically linked to the NATO secret services [9]. He
claims to have given the order to kill the Russian pilots as they parachuted down [10].
The Russian plane which was shot down only entered Turkish air-space for 17 seconds, and was hit
after it was already in Syrian air-space. However, since Turkey considered that it had annexed
the 8-kilometre corridor which it was authorised to enter according to the agreement with
ex-President Hafez el-Assad, it may have believed that the intrusion lasted longer. In any case,
in order to shoot down the Sukhoï 24, the Turkish fighter had to enter Syrian air-space for 40
seconds [11].
The Russians had taken no particular measures to protect their bombers, considering that Turkey
is an official participant in the fight against terrorist organisations. And an intrusion lasting
only a few seconds has never been considered as a " threat to national security " " particularly
since Turkey had been informed of the flight plan, and also that it regularly violates the
air-space of other states, such as Cyprus.
Immediately solicited by Turkey, NATO called a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, which was
unable to issue a resolution, but did its best by asking for a reading of a brief declaration by
their General Secretary which called for ... de-escalation -- [12]. Various sources reported
profound disagreement within the Council [13].
The official Saudi Press published an audio recording of an appeal by Turkish military air
controllers to the Russian plane warning it against an entry into Turkish air-space [14]. Several
AKP politicians commented on this recording and denounced the risks taken by the Russian army.
However, the Russian military has denied the authenticity of the recording, and has proved that
it is a fake. The Turkish government then denied any implication in the publishing of the
recording.
President Putin qualified the destruction of the Soukhoï 24 as a " knife in the back ". He
publicly questioned the rôle of Ankara in the financing of Daesh, particularly because of the
free transit of stolen petrol across Turkey. The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs has asked
the 4.5 million Russians who had planned to travel to Turkey to cancel their trip, and has
restored entry visas for Turkish nationals. By decree, the Kremlin has forbidden all new
contracts between Russian persons or organisations and Turkish persons or organisations,
including the employment of personnel, the import/export of merchandise, and tourism [15].
Turkey will regret "more than once" about its shooting down of a
Russian bomber jet near the
Syrian-Turkish border, Russian
President Vladimir Putin said on Dec. 3.
President Vladimir Putin said Turkey's shooting down of a
Russian military jet was a "war crime"
and that the Kremlin would punish Ankara
with additional sanctions, signaling fallout from the incident would be long-lasting and
serious.
Putin, who made the comments during his annual state of the nation speech to his country's
political elite on Dec. 3, said Russia
would not forget the Nov. 24 incident and that he continued to regard it as a terrible betrayal.
"We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling [with Turkey]," said Putin, after
asking for a moment's silence for the two
Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for
Russian victims of terrorism.
"But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime, the murder of our people, that
they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on
construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken."
Turkey would have cause to regret its actions "more than once," he said, promising Russia's
retaliatory actions would be neither hysterical nor dangerous.
In his aggressive remarks unusual in diplomatic tongue, Putin said "it appears that Allah decided
to punish the ruling clique of Turkey by depriving them of wisdom and judgment."
Putin said Moscow's anger over the incident was directed "at particular individuals" and not at
the Turkish people.
"... Aside from long-shots Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, any candidate likely to enter the Oval Office in January 2017 will be committed to some version of much-more war, including obviously Donald Trump, Marco (" clash of civilizations ") Rubio, and Hillary Clinton, who recently gave a hawkish speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on her version of war policy against the Islamic State. ..."
"... Assume that the hawks get their way -- that the United States does whatever it takes militarily to confront and destroy ISIS. Then what? Answering that question requires taking seriously the outcomes of other recent U.S. interventions in the Greater Middle East. In 1991, when the first President Bush ejected Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait, Americans rejoiced, believing that they had won a decisive victory. A decade later, the younger Bush seemingly outdid his father by toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan and then making short work of Saddam himself -- a liberation twofer achieved in less time than it takes Americans to choose a president. After the passage of another decade, Barack Obama got into the liberation act, overthrowing the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in what appeared to be a tidy air intervention with a clean outcome. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton memorably put it , "We came, we saw, he died." End of story. In fact, subsequent events in each case mocked early claims of success or outright victory. Unanticipated consequences and complications abounded. "Liberation" turned out to be a prelude to chronic violence and upheaval. ..."
"... Indeed, the very existence of the Islamic State (ISIS) today renders a definitive verdict on the Iraq wars over which the Presidents Bush presided, each abetted by a Democratic successor. A de facto collaboration of four successive administrations succeeded in reducing Iraq to what it is today: a dysfunctional quasi-state unable to control its borders or territory while serving as a magnet and inspiration for terrorists. ..."
"... Were it not for the reckless American decision to invade and occupy a nation that, whatever its crimes, had nothing to do with 9/11, the Islamic State would not exist. ..."
"... True, in both Syria and Iraq the Islamic State has demonstrated a disturbing ability to capture and hold large stretches of desert, along with several population centers. It has, however, achieved these successes against poorly motivated local forces of, at best, indifferent quality. ..."
"... Time and again the unanticipated side effects of U.S. military action turned out to be very bad indeed. In Kabul, Baghdad, or Tripoli, the Alamo fell, but the enemy dispersed or reinvented itself and the conflict continued. Assurances offered by Kristol that this time things will surely be different deserve to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Pass the whole shaker. ..."
"... American Interest ..."
"... Now I happen to think that equating our present predicament in the Islamic world with the immensely destructive conflicts of the prior century is dead wrong. Yet it's a proposition that Americans at this juncture should contemplate with the utmost seriousness. ..."
"... With so much on the line, Cohen derides the Obama administration's tendency to rely on "therapeutic bombing, which will temporarily relieve the itch, but leave the wounds suppurating." The time for such half-measures has long since passed. Defeating the Islamic State and "kindred movements" will require the U.S. to "kill a great many people." To that end Washington needs "a long-range plan not to 'contain' but to crush" the enemy. Even with such a plan, victory will be a long way off and will require "a long, bloody, and costly process." ..."
"... Nor were Americans sufficiently willing to die for the cause. In South Vietnam, 58,000 G.I.s died in a futile effort to enable that country to survive. In Iraq and Afghanistan, where the stakes were presumably much higher, we pulled the plug after fewer than 7,000 deaths. ..."
"... In the meantime, U.S. forces would have to deal with the various and sundry "kindred movements" that are already cropping up like crabgrass in country after country. Afghanistan -- still? again? -- would head the list of places requiring U.S. military attention. But other prospective locales would include such hotbeds of Islamist activity as Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, and Yemen, along with several West African countries increasingly beset with insurgencies. Unless Egyptian, Pakistani, and Saudi security forces demonstrate the ability (not to mention the will) to suppress the violent radicals in their midst, one or more of those countries could also become the scene of significant U.S. military action. ..."
"... At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To make it somewhat more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that number in historical perspective. During the first phases of World War III, for example, the United States routinely allocated 10% or more of total gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those charged with managing World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to build upon. ..."
"... In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal responsibility would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders are loathe to make. Today, neither party appears up to taking on such challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will persuade them to rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasn't so far. ..."
"... In my view, Cohen's World War IV is an invitation to collective suicide. Arguing that no alternative exists to open-ended war represents not hard-nosed realism, but the abdication of statecraft. Yet here's the ultimate irony: even without the name, the United States has already embarked upon something akin to a world war, which now extends into the far reaches of the Islamic world and spreads further year by year. ..."
"... Andrew J. Bacevich, a ..."
"... , is professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of ..."
"... , among other works. His new book, ..."
"... is due out in April 2016. ..."
"... on Twitter and join us on Facebook . Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse's ..."
Let's consider the two parties in Washington. I'm not referring to the Republican and Democratic
ones, but our capital's war parties (there being no peace party, of course). They might be labeled
the More War Party and the Much (or Much, Much) More War Party. Headed by President Obama, the first
is distinctly a minority grouping. In a capital city in which, post-Paris, war seems to be the order
of the day, it's the party of relative restraint, as the president has clearly grasped the obvious:
for the last 14 years, the more wholeheartedly the U.S. has gone into any situation in the Greater
Middle East, militarily speaking, the
worse it has turned out.
Having promised to get us out of two wars and being essentially assured of leaving us in
at least three (and various other conflicts on the side), he insists that a new invasion or even
a large-scale infusion of American troops, aka "boots on the ground," in Syria or Iraq is a
no-go for him. The code word he uses for his version of more war -- since less war is simply
not an option on that "table" in Washington where all options are evidently kept -- is "intensification."
Once upon a time, it might have been called "escalation" or "mission creep." The president has pledged
to merely "intensify" the war he's launched, however reluctantly, in Syria and the one he's re-launched
in Iraq. This seems to mean more of exactly what he's already ordered into the fray: more air power,
more special forces boots
more or less on the ground in Syria, more special ops raiders
sent into Iraq, and perhaps more military advisers ever nearer to the action in that country
as well. This is as close as you're likely to get in present-day America, at least in official circles,
to an antiwar position.
In the Much (or Much, Much) More War party,
Republicans and
Democrats alike are explicitly or implicitly criticizing the president for his "weak" policies
and for "leading
from behind" against the Islamic State. They propose solutions ranging from instituting "no-fly
zones" in northern Syria to truly intensifying U.S. air strikes, to
sending in local forces backed and led by American special operators (à la Afghanistan 2001),
to sending in
far more American troops, to simply putting
masses of American boots on the ground and storming the Islamic State's capital, Raqqa. After
fourteen years in which so many similar "solutions" have been tried and in the end failed miserably
in the Greater Middle East or North Africa, all of it, as if brand new, is once again on that table
in Washington.
Aside from long-shots Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, any candidate likely to enter the Oval Office
in January 2017 will be committed to some version of much-more war, including obviously Donald Trump,
Marco ("clash
of civilizations") Rubio, and Hillary Clinton, who recently gave a
hawkish speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on her version of war policy against the Islamic
State. Given that stark reality, this is a perfect moment to explore what much-more war (call it,
in fact, "World War IV") might actually mean and how it might play out in our world -- and
TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich is the perfect person to do it. Tom
Assume that the hawks get their way -- that the United States does whatever it takes militarily
to confront and destroy ISIS. Then what?
Answering that question requires taking seriously the outcomes of other recent U.S. interventions
in the Greater Middle East. In 1991, when the first President Bush ejected Saddam Hussein's army
from Kuwait, Americans rejoiced, believing that they had won a decisive victory. A decade later,
the younger Bush seemingly outdid his father by toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan and then making
short work of Saddam himself -- a liberation twofer achieved in less time than it takes Americans
to choose a president. After the passage of another decade, Barack Obama got into the liberation
act, overthrowing the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in what appeared to be a tidy air intervention
with a clean outcome. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton memorably
put it, "We came, we saw, he died." End of story.
In fact, subsequent events in each case mocked early claims of success or outright victory.
Unanticipated consequences and complications abounded. "Liberation" turned out to be a prelude
to chronic violence and upheaval.
Indeed, the very existence of the Islamic State (ISIS) today renders a definitive verdict
on the Iraq wars over which the Presidents Bush presided, each abetted by a Democratic successor.
A de facto collaboration of four successive administrations succeeded in reducing Iraq to what
it is today: a dysfunctional quasi-state unable to control its borders or territory while serving
as a magnet and inspiration for terrorists.
The United States bears a profound moral responsibility for having made such a hash of things
there. Were it not for the reckless American decision to invade and occupy a nation that,
whatever its crimes, had nothing to do with 9/11, the Islamic State would not exist. Per
the famous
Pottery Barn Rule attributed to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, having smashed Iraq
to bits a decade ago, we can now hardly deny owning ISIS.
That the United States possesses sufficient military power to make short work of that "caliphate"
is also the case. True, in both Syria and Iraq the Islamic State has demonstrated a disturbing
ability to capture and hold large stretches of desert, along with several population centers.
It has, however, achieved these successes against poorly motivated local forces of, at best, indifferent
quality.
In that regard, the glibly bellicose editor of the Weekly Standard, William Kristol,
is surely correct in suggesting that a well-armed contingent of
50,000 U.S. troops, supported by ample quantities of air power, would make mincemeat of ISIS
in a toe-to-toe contest. Liberation of the various ISIS strongholds like Fallujah and Mosul in
Iraq and Palmyra and Raqqa, its "capital," in Syria would undoubtedly follow in short order.
In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, the American mood is strongly trending in favor
of this sort of escalation. Just about anyone who is anyone -- the current occupant of the Oval
Office partially excepted -- favors intensifying the U.S. military campaign against ISIS. And
why not? What could possibly go wrong? As Kristol puts it, "I don't think there's much in the
way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there."
It's an alluring prospect. In the face of a sustained assault by the greatest military the
world has ever seen, ISIS foolishly (and therefore improbably) chooses to make an Alamo-like stand.
Whammo! We win. They lose.
Mission accomplished.
Of course, that phrase recalls the euphoric early reactions to Operations Desert Storm in 1991,
Enduring Freedom in 2001, Iraqi Freedom in 2003, and Odyssey Dawn, the Libyan intervention of
2011. Time and again the unanticipated side effects of U.S. military action turned out to be very
bad indeed. In Kabul, Baghdad, or Tripoli, the Alamo fell, but the enemy dispersed or reinvented
itself and the conflict continued. Assurances offered by Kristol that this time things will surely
be different deserve to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Pass the whole shaker.
Embracing Generational War
Why this repeated disparity between perceived and actual outcomes? Why have apparent battlefield
successes led so regularly to more violence and disorder? Before following Kristol's counsel,
Americans would do well to reflect on these questions.
Cue Professor Eliot A. Cohen. Shortly after 9/11, Cohen, one of this country's preeminent military
thinkers, characterized the conflict on which the United States was then embarking as "World
War IV." (In this formulation, the Cold War becomes World War III.) Other than in certain
neoconservative quarters, the depiction did not catch on. Yet nearly a decade-and-a-half later,
the Johns Hopkins professor and former State Department official is sticking to his guns. In an
essay penned for the American Interest following the recent Paris attacks, he
returns to his theme. "It was World War IV in 2001," Cohen
insists. "It is World War IV today." And to our considerable benefit he spells out at least
some of the implications of casting the conflict in such expansive and evocative terms.
Now I happen to think that equating our present predicament in the Islamic world with the immensely
destructive conflicts of the prior century is dead wrong. Yet it's a proposition that Americans
at this juncture should contemplate with the utmost seriousness.
In the United States today, confusion about what war itself signifies is widespread. Through
misuse, misapplication, and above all misremembering, we have distorted the term almost beyond
recognition. As one consequence, talk of war comes too easily off the tongues of the unknowing.
Not so with Cohen. When it comes to war, he has no illusions. Addressing that subject, he illuminates
it, enabling us to see what war entails. So in advocating World War IV, he performs a great service,
even if perhaps not the one he intends.
What will distinguish the war that Cohen deems essential? "Begin with endurance," he writes.
"This war will probably go on for the rest of my life, and well into my children's." Although
American political leaders seem reluctant "to explain just how high the stakes are," Cohen lays
them out in direct, unvarnished language. At issue, he insists, is the American way of life itself,
not simply "in the sense of rock concerts and alcohol in restaurants, but the more fundamental
rights of freedom of speech and religion, the equality of women, and, most essentially, the freedom
from fear and freedom to think."
With so much on the line, Cohen derides the Obama administration's tendency to rely on
"therapeutic bombing, which will temporarily relieve the itch, but leave the wounds suppurating."
The time for such half-measures has long since passed. Defeating the Islamic State and "kindred
movements" will require the U.S. to "kill a great many people." To that end Washington needs "a
long-range plan not to 'contain' but to crush" the enemy. Even with such a plan, victory will
be a long way off and will require "a long, bloody, and costly process."
Cohen's candor and specificity, as bracing as they are rare, should command our respect. If
World War IV describes what we are in for, then eliminating ISIS might figure as a near-term imperative,
but it can hardly define the endgame. Beyond ISIS loom all those continually evolving "kindred
movements" to which the United States will have to attend before it can declare the war itself
well and truly won.
To send just tens of thousands of U.S. troops to clean up Syria and Iraq, as William Kristol
and others propose, offers at best a recipe for winning a single campaign. Winning the larger
war would involve far more arduous exertions. This Cohen understands, accepts, and urges others
to acknowledge.
And here we come to the heart of the matter. For at least the past 35 years -- that is, since
well before 9/11 -- the United States has been "at war" in various quarters of the Islamic world.
At no point has it demonstrated the will or the ability to finish the job. Washington's approach
has been akin to treating cancer with a little bit of chemo one year and a one-shot course of
radiation the next. Such gross malpractice aptly describes U.S. military policy throughout the
Greater Middle East across several decades.
While there may be many reasons why the Iraq War of 2003 to 2011 and the still longer Afghanistan
War yielded such disappointing results, Washington's timidity in conducting those campaigns deserves
pride of place. That most Americans might bridle at the term "timidity" reflects the extent to
which they have deluded themselves regarding the reality of war.
In
comparison to Vietnam, for example, Washington's approach to waging its two principal post-9/11
campaigns was positively half-hearted. With the nation as a whole adhering to peacetime routines,
Washington neither sent enough troops nor stayed anywhere near long enough to finish the job.
Yes, we killed many tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, but if winning World War IV requires,
as Cohen writes, that we "break the back" of the enemy, then we obviously didn't kill nearly enough.
Nor were Americans sufficiently willing to die for the cause. In South Vietnam, 58,000
G.I.s died in a futile effort to enable that country to survive. In Iraq and Afghanistan, where
the stakes were presumably much higher, we pulled the plug after fewer than 7,000 deaths.
Americans would be foolish to listen to those like William Kristol who, even today, peddle
illusions about war being neat and easy. They would do well instead to heed Cohen, who knows that
war is hard and ugly.
What Would World War IV Look Like?
Yet when specifying the practical implications of generational war, Cohen is less forthcoming.
From his perspective, this fourth iteration of existential armed conflict in a single century
is not going well. But apart from greater resolve and bloody-mindedness, what will it take to
get things on the right track?
As a thought experiment, let's answer that question by treating it with the urgency that Cohen
believes it deserves. After 9/11, certain U.S. officials thundered about "taking the gloves off."
In practice, however, with the notable exception of policies permitting torture and imprisonment
without due process, the gloves stayed on. Take Cohen's conception of World War IV at face value
and that will have to change.
For starters, the country would have to move to something like a war footing, enabling Washington
to raise a lot more troops and spend a lot more money over a very long period of time. Although
long since banished from the nation's political lexicon, the M-word -- mobilization -- would make
a comeback. Prosecuting a generational war, after all, is going to require the commitment of generations.
Furthermore, if winning World War IV means crushing the enemy, as Cohen emphasizes, then ensuring
that the enemy, once crushed, cannot recover would be hardly less important. And that requirement
would prohibit U.S. forces from simply walking away from a particular fight even -- or especially
-- when it might appear won.
At the present moment, defeating the Islamic State ranks as Washington's number one priority.
With the Pentagon already claiming a body count of
20,000 ISIS fighters without notable effect, this campaign won't end anytime soon. But even
assuming an eventually positive outcome, the task of maintaining order and stability in areas
that ISIS now controls will remain. Indeed, that task will persist until the conditions giving
rise to entities like ISIS are eliminated. Don't expect French President François Hollande or
British Prime Minister David Cameron to sign up for that thankless job. U.S. forces will own it.
Packing up and leaving the scene won't be an option.
How long would those forces have to stay? Extrapolating from recent U.S. occupations in Iraq
and Afghanistan, something on the order of a quarter-century seems like a plausible approximation.
So should our 45th president opt for a boots-on-the-ground solution to ISIS, as might well be
the case, the privilege of welcoming the troops home could belong to the 48th or 49th occupant
of the White House.
In the meantime, U.S. forces would have to deal with the various and sundry "kindred movements"
that are already
cropping up like crabgrass in country after country. Afghanistan -- still? again? -- would
head the list of places requiring U.S. military attention. But other prospective locales would
include such hotbeds of Islamist activity as Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Somalia, and Yemen, along
with several West African countries increasingly beset with insurgencies. Unless Egyptian, Pakistani,
and Saudi security forces demonstrate the ability (not to mention the will) to suppress the violent
radicals in their midst, one or more of those countries could also become the scene of significant
U.S. military action.
Effective prosecution of World War IV, in other words, would require the Pentagon to plan for
each of these contingencies, while mustering the assets needed for implementation. Allies might
kick in token assistance -- tokenism is all they have to offer -- but the United States will necessarily
carry most of the load.
What Would World War IV Cost?
During World War III (aka the Cold War), the Pentagon maintained a force structure ostensibly
adequate to the simultaneous prosecution of two and a half wars. This meant having the wherewithal
to defend Europe and the Pacific from communist aggression while still leaving something for the
unexpected. World War IV campaigns are unlikely to entail anything on the scale of the Warsaw
Pact attacking Western Europe or North Korea invading the South. Still, the range of plausible
scenarios will require that U.S. forces be able to take on militant organizations C and D even
while guarding against the resurgence of organizations A and B in altogether different geographic
locations.
Even though Washington may try whenever possible to avoid large-scale ground combat, relying
on air power (including drones) and elite Special Operations forces to do the actual killing,
post-conflict pacification promises to be a manpower intensive activity. Certainly, this ranks
as one of the most obvious lessons to emerge from World War IV's preliminary phases: when the
initial fight ends, the real work begins.
U.S. forces committed to asserting control over Iraq after the invasion of 2003 topped out
at roughly 180,000. In Afghanistan, during the Obama presidency, the presence peaked at 110,000.
In a historical context, these are not especially large numbers. At the height of the Vietnam
War, for example, U.S. troop strength in Southeast Asia exceeded 500,000.
In hindsight, the Army general who, before the invasion of 2003,
publicly suggested that pacifying postwar Iraq would require "several hundred thousand troops"
had it right. A similar estimate applies to Afghanistan. In other words, those two occupations
together could easily have absorbed 600,000 to 800,000 troops on an ongoing basis. Given the Pentagon's
standard three-to-one rotation policy, which assumes that for every unit in-country, a second
is just back, and a third is preparing to deploy, you're talking about a minimum requirement of
between 1.8 and 2.4 million troops to sustain just two medium-sized campaigns -- a figure that
wouldn't include some number of additional troops kept in reserve for the unexpected.
In other words, waging World War IV would require at least a five-fold increase in the current
size of the U.S. Army -- and not as an emergency measure but a permanent one. Such numbers may
appear large, but as Cohen would be the first to point out, they are actually modest when compared
to previous world wars. In 1968, in the middle of World War III, the Army had more than 1.5 million
active duty soldiers on its rolls -- this at a time when the total American population was less
than two-thirds what it is today and when gender discrimination largely excluded women from military
service. If it chose to do so, the United States today could easily field an army of two million
or more soldiers.
Whether it could also retain the current model of an all-volunteer force is another matter.
Recruiters would certainly face considerable challenges, even if Congress enhanced the material
inducements for service, which since 9/11 have already included a succession of
generous increases in military pay. A loosening of immigration policy, granting a few hundred
thousand foreigners citizenship in return for successfully completing a term of enlistment might
help. In all likelihood, however, as with all three previous world wars, waging World War IV would
oblige the United States to revive the draft, a prospect as likely to be well-received as a flood
of brown and black immigrant enlistees. In short, going all out to create the forces needed to
win World War IV would confront Americans with uncomfortable choices.
The budgetary implications of expanding U.S. forces while conducting a perpetual round of what
the Pentagon calls "overseas contingency operations" would also loom large. Precisely how much
money an essentially global conflict projected to extend well into the latter half of the century
would require is difficult to gauge. As a starting point, given the increased number of active
duty forces, tripling the present Defense Department budget of
more than $600
billion might serve as a reasonable guess.
At first glance, $1.8 trillion annually is a stupefyingly large figure. To make it somewhat
more palatable, a proponent of World War IV might put that number in historical perspective. During
the first phases of World War III, for example, the United States routinely allocated
10% or more of total gross domestic product (GDP) for national security. With that GDP today
exceeding $17 trillion, apportioning 10% to the Pentagon would give those charged with managing
World War IV a nice sum to work with and no doubt to build upon.
Of course, that money would have to come from somewhere. For several years during the last
decade, sustaining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan pushed the federal deficit above a trillion dollars.
As one consequence, the total national debt now exceeds annual GDP, having tripled since 9/11.
How much additional debt the United States can accrue without doing permanent damage to the economy
is a question of more than academic interest.
To avoid having World War IV produce an endless string of unacceptably large deficits, ratcheting
up military spending would undoubtedly require either substantial tax increases or significant
cuts in non-military spending, including big-ticket programs like Medicare and social security
-- precisely those, that is, which members of the middle class hold most dear.
In other words, funding World War IV while maintaining a semblance of fiscal responsibility
would entail the kind of trade-offs that political leaders are loathe to make. Today, neither
party appears up to taking on such challenges. That the demands of waging protracted war will
persuade them to rise above their partisan differences seems unlikely. It sure hasn't so far.
The Folly of World War IV
In his essay, Cohen writes, "we need to stop the circumlocutions." Of those who would bear
the direct burden of his world war, he says, "we must start telling them the truth." He's right,
even if he himself is largely silent about what the conduct of World War IV is likely to exact
from the average citizen.
As the United States enters a presidential election year, plain talk about the prospects of
our ongoing military engagement in the Islamic world should be the order of the day. The pretense
that either dropping a few more bombs or invading one or two more countries will yield a conclusive
outcome amounts to more than an evasion. It is an outright lie.
As Cohen knows, winning World War IV would require dropping many, many more bombs and invading,
and then occupying for years to come, many more countries. After all, it's not just ISIS that
Washington will have to deal with, but also its affiliates, offshoots, wannabes, and the successors
almost surely waiting in the wings. And don't forget al-Qaeda.
Cohen believes that we have no alternative. Either we get serious about fighting World War
IV the way it needs to be fought or darkness will envelop the land. He is undeterred by the evidence
that the more deeply we insert our soldiers into the Greater Middle East the more concerted the
resistance they face; that the more militants we kill the more we seem to create; that the inevitable,
if unintended, killing of innocents only serves to strengthen the hand of the extremists. As he
sees it, with everything we believe in riding on the outcome, we have no choice but to press on.
While listening carefully to Cohen's call to arms, Americans should reflect on its implications.
Wars change countries and people. Embracing his prescription for World War IV would change the
United States in fundamental ways. It would radically expand the scope and reach of the national
security state, which, of course, includes agencies beyond the military itself. It would divert
vast quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes. It would make the militarization of the American
way of life, a legacy of prior world wars, irreversible. By sowing fear and fostering impossible
expectations of perfect security, it would also compromise American freedom in the name of protecting
it. The nation that decades from now might celebrate VT Day -- victory over terrorism -- will
have become a different place, materially, politically, culturally, and morally.
In my view, Cohen's World War IV is an invitation to collective suicide. Arguing that no
alternative exists to open-ended war represents not hard-nosed realism, but the abdication of
statecraft. Yet here's the ultimate irony: even without the name, the United States has already
embarked upon something akin to a world war, which now extends into the far reaches of the Islamic
world and spreads further year by year.
Incrementally, bit by bit, this nameless war has already expanded the scope and reach of the
national security apparatus. It is diverting vast quantities of wealth to nonproductive purposes
even as it normalizes the continuing militarization of the American way of life. By sowing fear
and fostering impossible expectations of perfect security, it is undermining American freedom
in the name of protecting it, and doing so right before our eyes.
Cohen rightly decries the rudderless character of the policies that have guided the (mis)conduct
of that war thus far. For that critique we owe him a considerable debt. But the real problem is
the war itself and the conviction that only through war can America remain America.
For a rich and powerful nation to conclude that it has no choice but to engage in quasi-permanent
armed conflict in the far reaches of the planet represents the height of folly. Power confers
choice. As citizens, we must resist with all our might arguments that deny the existence
of choice. Whether advanced forthrightly by Cohen or fecklessly by the militarily ignorant, such
claims will only perpetuate the folly that has already lasted far too long.
Looks like Obama revenge to Putin for entering Syria...
Notable quotes:
"... The American E-3A was supposed to determine the activity of the Su-24M2s onboard targeting radar, to determine if it was in search mode or if it had already locked on to a target and was processing launch data. It is known that the AWACS can direct the activity of aircraft in battle, conveying information to their avionics and flight computers. ..."
"... This plane [the F-16CJ] had been specifically built for Turkey. Its distinctive feature is a computer that controls a new, AN/APG-68 radar system, and which fulfills the role of a copilot-navigator. ..."
"... Indeed, the interception accuracy of the F-16CJ fighters was augmented by ground-based U.S. Patriot air defense systems, which are deployed in Turkey, or more precisely, their multirole AN/MPQ-53 radars. The Patriot can work with an E-3 or with MENTOR spy satellites, and it cant be ruled out that the satellite assets involved the Geosat space system as well. ..."
"... The flight trajectory of the F-16CJ indicates a precision interception of its target by means of triangulation: A pair of E-3s plus the Patriots air defense radar plus the geostationary MENTOR spy satellites plus, possibly, the Geosat space system. ..."
"... Of course. A pair of F-16CJs flew to the [missile] launch zone and, at a distance of 4-6 kilometers, practically point blank!, launched an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile into the rear hemisphere of our Russian bomber. Besides which, the AN/APG-68 onboard radar of the fighter which launched the missile, was working in "target illumination" mode. That is, it turned on at the moment of launch, and turned off as soon as the missile definitively locked on to its target. ..."
"... The Turks nonetheless committed one mistake, which led to their provocation not quite working out. The F-16CJ went out on its interception two minutes late, when the Su-24M2 had already left the disputed 68-kilometer zone in the north of Syria [this may be referring to the Turks self-styled no-fly-zone against Assad]; to leave it required at most 1.5 minutes. But the "kill" command to the F-16CJ had not been revoked; thus the missile launch was carried out a bit further than the intended point. This is confirmed by the fact that the [Turkish TV] footage of the Su-24M2s fall was planned to be filmed from both Syrian territory and Turkish territory; however, the "Syrian footage" is more detailed. It appears that this saved our navigator. He was able to go into the woods and wait for a rescue team. ..."
A Russian military expert and columnist of the journal Arsenal
of the Fatherland explains the details of the downing of the bomber and why
not all went smoothly in an
interview to the news agency Regnum
How did it all happen?
A U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS plane took off on 24 November
from the Preveza airbase in Greece. A second E-3A of the Saudi Arabian
air force took off from the Riyadh airbase. Both planes were executing
a common task-determining the precise location of Russian aircraft. It
is they that picked the "victim."
The American E-3A was supposed to determine the activity of the Su-24M2's
onboard targeting radar, to determine if it was in search mode or if it had
already locked on to a target and was processing launch data. It is known
that the AWACS can direct the activity of aircraft in battle, conveying information
to their avionics and flight computers.
That is, to determine how defenseless was our plane?
As it turns out, yes. As we know, the Su-24M2 was returning
from its mission, and its flight computer was operating in "navigation" mode
in tandem with the GLONASS [Russian GPS system.] It was returning to base
and was not preparing for action. The whole time, the E-3s were transferring
detailed information about the Su-24M2 to a pair of Turkish F-16CJ's.
This plane [the F-16CJ] had been specifically built for Turkey. Its distinctive
feature is a computer that controls a new, AN/APG-68 radar system, and which
fulfills the role of a copilot-navigator.
But this information is obviously not enough to precision-strike
a small target. Was something else used?
Indeed, the interception accuracy of the F-16CJ fighters was augmented
by ground-based U.S. Patriot air defense systems, which are deployed in Turkey,
or more precisely, their multirole AN/MPQ-53 radars. The Patriot can work
with an E-3 or with MENTOR spy satellites, and it can't be ruled out that the
satellite assets involved the Geosat space system as well.
The flight trajectory of the F-16CJ indicates a precision interception
of its target by means of triangulation: A pair of E-3s plus the Patriot's
air defense radar plus the geostationary MENTOR spy satellites plus, possibly,
the Geosat space system.
Besides which, the E-3s provided guidance as to the location of
our plane in the air; they determined its route, speed, and the status of its
weapons control systems; and the Patriot's air defense radar together with the
MENTOR spy satellite provided telemetry on the SU-24M2's movement relative to
the ground surface-that is, it provided a precise prediction as to where our
plane would be visible relative to the mountainous terrain.
So it turns out that the Turkish fighters knew with absolutely
certainty where to wait in ambush for our plane?
Of course. A pair of F-16CJ's flew to the [missile] launch
zone and, at a distance of 4-6 kilometers, practically point blank!, launched
an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile into the rear hemisphere of our Russian
bomber. Besides which, the AN/APG-68 onboard radar of the fighter which
launched the missile, was working in "target illumination" mode. That
is, it turned on at the moment of launch, and turned off as soon as the missile
definitively locked on to its target.
Did our pilots have a chance to save their plane?
No. The Su-24M2 crew's probability of escaping destruction
was equal to zero…
…Turkey does not have its own capabilities for such a detailed
and very precise operation. And don't forget about the second E-3, from
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The whole scenario was very fast-moving,
lasting just seconds.
Did it really happen that smoothly?
The Turks nonetheless committed one mistake, which led to their
provocation not quite working out. The F-16CJ went out on its interception
two minutes late, when the Su-24M2 had already left the disputed 68-kilometer
zone in the north of Syria [this may be referring to the Turk's self-styled
no-fly-zone against Assad]; to leave it required at most 1.5 minutes.
But the "kill" command to the F-16CJ had not been revoked; thus the missile
launch was carried out a bit further than the intended point. This is
confirmed by the fact that the [Turkish TV] footage of the Su-24M2's fall was
planned to be filmed from both Syrian territory and Turkish territory; however,
the "Syrian footage" is more detailed. It appears that this saved our
navigator. He was able to go into the woods and wait for a rescue team.
All this neoliberal talk about "maximizing shareholder value" is designed to hide a
redistribution mechanism of wealth up. Which is the essence of neoliberalism.
It's all about executive pay. "Shareholder value" is nothing then a ruse for
getting outsize bonuses but top execs. Stock buybacks is a form of asset-stripping,
similar to one practiced by buyout sharks, but practiced by internal management team.
Who cares if the company will be destroyed if you have a golden parachute ?
Notable quotes:
"... By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street . ..."
"... IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. ..."
"... Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it. ..."
"... Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period. ..."
"... This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income of $847 billion. ..."
"... Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery. ..."
"... Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income is declining. ..."
"... But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered. ..."
"... Me thinks Wolf is slightly barking up the wrong tree here. What needs to be looked at is how buy backs affect executive pay. "Shareholder value" is more often than not a ruse? ..."
"... Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s). ..."
"... On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement? ..."
"... buybacks *can* be asset-stripping and often are, but unless you tie capital allocation decisions closer to investment in the business such that they're mutually exclusive, this is specious and a reach. No one invests if they can't see the return. It would be just as easy to say that they're buying back stock because revenue is slipping and they have no other investment opportunities. ..."
"... Perhaps an analysis of the monopolistic positions of so many American businesses that allow them the wherewithal to underinvest and still buy back huge amounts of stock? If we had a more competitive economy, companies would have less ability to underinvest. Ultimately, I think buybacks are more a result than a cause of dysfunction, but certainly not always bad. ..."
"... One aspect that Reuters piece mentions, but glosses over with a single paragraph buried in the middle, is the fact that for many companies there are no ( or few) reasons to spend money in other ways. If capex/r d doesn't give you much return, why not buy out the shareholders who are least interested in holding your stock? ..."
"... Dumping money into R D is always risky, although different industries have different levels, and the "do it in-house" risk must be weighed against the costs of buying up companies with "proven" technologies. Thus, R D cash is hidden inside M A. M A is up 2-3 years in a row. ..."
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive,
entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international
work experience. Originally published at
Wolf Street.
Magic trick turns into toxic mix.
Stocks have been on a tear to nowhere this year. Now investors are
praying for a Santa rally to pull them out of the mire. They're counting on
desperate amounts of share buybacks that companies fund by loading up on
debt. But the magic trick that had performed miracles over the past few
years is backfiring.
And there's a reason.
IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111
billion it invested in capital expenditures and R&D. It's staggering under
its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It
cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. And its stock is down 38%
since March 2013.
Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in
the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R&D and $18 billion in capital
spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on
R&D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it.
"Activist investors" – hedge funds – have been clamoring for it. An
investigative report by Reuters, titled
The Cannibalized Company, lined some of them up:
In March, General Motors Co acceded to a $5 billion share buyback to
satisfy investor Harry Wilson. He had threatened a proxy fight if the
auto maker didn't distribute some of the $25 billion cash hoard it had
built up after emerging from bankruptcy just a few years earlier.
DuPont early this year announced a $4 billion buyback program – on top
of a $5 billion program announced a year earlier – to beat back activist
investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management, which was seeking four
board seats to get its way.
In March, Qualcomm Inc., under pressure from hedge fund Jana Partners,
agreed to boost its program to purchase $10 billion of its shares over
the next 12 months; the company already had an existing $7.8 billion
buyback program and a commitment to return three quarters of its free
cash flow to shareholders.
And in July, Qualcomm announced 5,000 layoffs. It's hard to innovate when
you're trying to please a hedge fund.
CEOs with a long-term outlook and a focus on innovation and investment,
rather than financial engineering, come under intense pressure.
"None of it is optional; if you ignore them, you go away," Russ Daniels,
a tech executive with 15 years at Apple and 13 years at HP, told Reuters.
"It's all just resource allocation," he said. "The situation right now is
there are a lot of investors who believe that they can make a better
decision about how to apply that resource than the management of the
business can."
Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies
Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the
money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time
in a non-recession period.
This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal
2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion
in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income
of $847 billion.
Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies
that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in
1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this
time! Hence the lousy recovery.
Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the
minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional
demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The
hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also
reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per
share, even when net income is declining.
"Serving customers, creating innovative new products, employing workers,
taking care of the environment … are NOT the objectives of firms," sais Itzhak
Ben-David, a finance professor of Ohio State University, a buyback
proponent, according to Reuters. "These are components in the process that
have the goal of maximizing shareholders' value."
But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing
investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for
revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder
value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered.
Citigroup credit analysts looked into the extent to which this is
happening – and why. Christine Hughes, Chief Investment Strategist at
OtterWood Capital, summarized the Citi report this way: "This
dynamic of borrowing from bondholders to pay shareholders may be coming to
an end…."
Their chart (via OtterWood Capital) shows that about half of the
cumulative outperformance of these buyback queens from 2012 through 2014 has
been frittered away this year, as their shares, IBM-like, have swooned:
Mbuna, November 21, 2015 at 7:31 am
Me thinks Wolf is slightly barking up the wrong tree here. What needs to be
looked at is how buy backs affect executive pay. "Shareholder value" is more
often than not a ruse?
ng, November 21, 2015 at 8:58 am
probably, in some or most cases, but the effect on the stock is the same.
Alejandro, November 21, 2015 at 9:19 am
Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV,
it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s).
On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of
"affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce
and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling
the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational
purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of
embezzlement?
Jim, November 21, 2015 at 10:42 am
More nuance and less dogma please. The dogmatic tone really hurts what could
otherwise be a fine but more-qualified position.
"Results of all this financial engineering? Revenues of the S&P 500
companies are falling for the fourth quarter in a row – the worst such spell
since the Financial Crisis."
Eh, no. No question that buybacks *can* be asset-stripping and often
are, but unless you tie capital allocation decisions closer to investment in
the business such that they're mutually exclusive, this is specious and a
reach. No one invests if they can't see the return. It would be just as easy to
say that they're buying back stock because revenue is slipping and they have no
other investment opportunities.
Revenues are falling in large part because these largest companies derive an
ABSOLUTELY HUGE portion of their business overseas and the dollar has been
ridiculously strong in the last 12-15 months. Rates are poised to rise, and the
easy Fed-inspired rate arbitrage vis a vis stocks and "risk on" trade are
closing. How about a little more context instead of just dogma?
John Malone made a career out of financial engineering, something like 30%
annual returns for the 25 years of his CEO tenure at TCI. Buybacks were a huge
part of that.
Perhaps an analysis of the monopolistic positions of so many American
businesses that allow them the wherewithal to underinvest and still buy back
huge amounts of stock? If we had a more competitive economy, companies would
have less ability to underinvest. Ultimately, I think buybacks are more a
result than a cause of dysfunction, but certainly not always bad.
NeqNeq, November 21, 2015 at 11:44 am
One aspect that Reuters piece mentions, but glosses over with a single
paragraph buried in the middle, is the fact that for many companies there are
no ( or few) reasons to spend money in other ways. If capex/r&d doesn't give
you much return, why not buy out the shareholders who are least interested in
holding your stock?
Dumping cash into plants only makes sense in the places where the market is
growing. For many years that has meant Asia (China). For example, Apple gets
66% (iirc) of revenue from Asia, and that is where they have continued
investing in growth. If demand is slowing and costs are rising, and it looks
like both are true, why would you put even more money in?
Dumping money into R&D is always risky, although different industries have
different levels, and the "do it in-house" risk must be weighed against the
costs of buying up companies with "proven" technologies. Thus, R&D cash is
hidden inside M&A. M&A is up 2-3 years in a row.
"... Now obviously, conclusive evidence that Ankara is knowingly facilitating the sale of ISIS crude will probably be hard to come by, at least in the short-term, but the silly thing about Erdogans pronouncement is that were talking about a man who was willing to plunge his country into civil war over a few lost seats in Parliament. The idea that he would ever step down is patently absurd. ..."
"... Whats critical is that the world gets the truth about whos financing and facilitating Raqqas Rockefellers. If a NATO member is supporting this, and if the US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks for 14 months as part of an understanding with Erdogan, well then we have a problem. ..."
"... In the opening address, the Deputy says the ISIS oil trade reaches the highest levels of Turkeys government. He also says Erdogan wouldnt resign if his face was smeared with stolen Syrian oil. Antonov then blasts Ankara for arresting journalists and mocks Erdogans lovely family oil business. Antonov even calls on the journalists of the world to get involved and help Russia expose and destroy the sources of terrorist financing. ..."
"... I might be too harsh, but at the hands of the Turkish military killed our comrades. The cynicism of the Turkish leadership is unlimited. Look what theyre doing ?! Climbed to a foreign country, it shamelessly robbed. And if the owners interfere, then they have to be addressed. ..."
"... No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of Turkey is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-appointed Minister of Energy? What a brilliant family business! ..."
"... National intelligence agencies watch Facebook, Twitter, Google and other search engines to see if they have to do damage control. If a few sites come out with articles implicating Bilal but the little people dont do many searches for him or re-tweet links, then theres no reason to react. They simply ignore the story. ..."
"... The government defines the narrative, and MSM stenographers fill in the pieces. Facebook, Twitter and Google are checked to see if they had the desired effect. They can also use a bit more direct techniques like massaging the Google search result rankings or blowing away Facebook and Twitter accounts they dont like. Israel is insane about collecting this data from Americans and reacting. Uncle Sugar isnt going to cough up that free $3 billion a year handout to them if the people are in the streets with pitchforks and torches. They are especially interested in de-ranking Google results that make Israel look bad, and promoting sites that deliver the message they want. Google is the worst search engine to look for Israeli current events. ..."
"... Obama Administration Supporting Islamic State -- OASIS. It certainly is if youre a terrorist rebel or well-connected oil pimp... ..."
"... The US made a deal with OPEC: the US would help to remove Assad, and in return, OPEC would dump oil to weaken Russia and Iran, fulfilling PNAC/Cheneys pet dream of consolidating the remaining oil reserves under US-friendly control. ISIS was a tool to that end. ..."
"... Now that the cat is out of the bag, now that Chinas overdue correction has been triggered, now that Brazil and Canada know who is largely responsible for their collapsing economies, now that Europe knows why they are overrun by refugees, I wonder how friendly those countries will be moving forward. ..."
"... As I read it, according to traditional international law, the Russian Federation may legally seize Erdogans Maltese-flagged neutral tankers carrying ISIS crude oil, because that crude oil constitutes a significant portion of ISIS war making potential, that tanker then effectively constituting an enemy merchant vessel, with the tankers subsequent condemnation in Russian prize courts, as the capturing belligerent power. ..."
"... A former police commander from Tajikistan was featured in an ISIS video recently where he admitted he was trained by the U.S. State Department and former military contractor Blackwater all the way up until last year. ..."
"... It was Turkeys national intelligence agency, known as MIT, that first organized Syrian military defectors into Western-backed groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. ..."
"... Free Syrian Army factions still convene on Turkish soil in the Joint Operations Center, a CIA-led intelligence hub that gives vetted rebels training as well as U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles used to destroy Syrian army tanks and armored units. ..."
"... Islamist groups, however, have benefited from Turkeys pro-opposition policy as well. In May, the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published video from 2014 showing customs agents impounding a truck owned by the MIT. The trucks manifest said it was carrying humanitarian assistance for Syrians. Instead it was bearing a cache of ammunition and shells the newspaper said were destined for Islamist rebels. The videos release caused a furor. Erdogan vowed to prosecute Cumhuriyet, a threat he carried out Friday when authorities arrested two of the papers journalists on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization. ..."
"... According to a 2015 United Nations study, two border crossings controlled by a faction of the Army of Conquest handle more than 300 trucks a day, a figure that exceeds prewar levels. The traffic yields an estimated $660,000 a day. ..."
On Monday, Turkey's sultan President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
said something funny. In the wake of Vladimir Putin's contention that Russia has additional proof
of Turkey's participation in Islamic State's illicit crude trade, Erdogan said he would resign if
anyone could prove the accusations.
Now obviously, conclusive evidence that Ankara is knowingly facilitating the sale of ISIS
crude will probably be hard to come by, at least in the short-term, but the silly thing about Erdogan's
pronouncement is that we're talking about a man who was willing to plunge his country into civil
war over a few lost seats in Parliament. The idea that he would ever "step down" is patently absurd.
But that's not what's important. What's critical is that the world gets the truth about who's
financing and facilitating "Raqqa's Rockefellers." If a NATO member is supporting this, and if the
US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks for 14 months as part of an understanding with Erdogan,
well then we have a problem. For those who need a review, see the following four pieces:
Unfortunately for Ankara, The Kremlin is on a mission to blow this story wide open now that Turkey
has apparently decided it's ok to shoot down Russian fighter jets. On Wednesday, we get the latest
from Russia, where the Defense Ministry has just finished a briefing on the Islamic State oil trade.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Turkey may be in trouble.
First, here's the bullet point summary via Reuters:
RUSSIA'S DEFENCE MINISTRY SAYS RUSSIA'S AIR STRIKES IN SYRIA HELPED TO ALMOST HALVE ILLEGAL
OIL TURNOVER
RUSSIA'S DEFENCE MINISTRY SAYS TURKISH PRESIDENT AND FAMILY INVOLVED IN BUSINESS WITH
ISLAMIC STATE OIL
RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY SAYS WILL CONTINUE STRIKES IN SYRIA ON ISLAMIC STATE OIL INFRASTRUCTURE
RUSSIA'S DEFENCE MINISTRY SAYS KNOWS OF THREE ROUTES BY WHICH ISLAMIC STATE OIL IS DIRECTED
TO TURKEY
RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY SAYS TO PRESENT NEXT WEEK INFORMATION SHOWING TURKEY HELPING
ISLAMIC STATE
That's the Cliff's Notes version and the full statement from Deputy Minister of Defence Anatoly
Antonov is below. Let us be the first to tell you, Antonov did not hold back.
In the opening address, the Deputy says the ISIS oil trade reaches the highest levels of Turkey's
government. He also says Erdogan wouldn't resign if his face was smeared with stolen Syrian oil.
Antonov then blasts Ankara for arresting journalists and mocks Erdogan's "lovely family oil business."
Antonov even calls on the journalists of the world to "get involved" and help Russia "expose and
destroy the sources of terrorist financing."
"Today, we are presenting only some of the facts that confirm that a whole team of bandits
and Turkish elites stealing oil from their neighbors is operating in the region," Antonov
continues, setting up a lengthy presentation in which the MoD shows photos of oil trucks, videos
of airstrikes and maps detailing the trafficking of stolen oil. The clip is presented here with an
English voice-over. Enjoy.
... ... ...
Oh, and for good measure, Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy says the US is not bombing
ISIS oil trucks.
ISIS OIL logistics hub, over 3,000 TRUCKS, travelling between Iraq & TURKEY
& US can't seem to find this???
BS pic.twitter.com/TNBa7CD9F0
At a briefing for the media, "the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the fight against
international terrorism. The new data "
International terrorism - is the main threat of our time. This threat is not illusory but real,
and many countries, primarily Russia, knows this firsthand. The notorious "Is Islamic state" - the
absolute leader of the terrorist international. This is a rearing monster of international terrorism
can be countered. And you can win. Over the past two months, Aerospace Russian forces is clearly
demonstrated.
We are firmly convinced that victory over LIH need to deliver a powerful and devastating blow
to the sources of its funding, as repeatedly mentioned by President Vladimir Putin. Terrorism has
no money - is a beast without teeth. Oil revenues are a major source of terrorist activity in Syria.
They earn about $ 2 billion. Dollars annually, spending this money on hiring fighters around the
world, providing them with weapons, equipment and weapons. That's why so LIH protects thieves oil
infrastructure in Syria and Iraq.
The main consumer of stolen from legitimate owners - Syria and Iraq - the oil is Turkey.
According to the data entered in this criminal business involved the highest political leadership
of the country - President Erdogan and his family.
We have repeatedly talked about the dangers of flirting with terrorists. It's like that stokes.
The fire from one country can spill over to others. This situation we are seeing in the Middle East.
Today, we present only part of the facts, confirming that the region has a team of bandits and Turkish
elites stealing oil from the neighbors.
This oil in large numbers on an industrial scale, for the living pipelines from thousands of oil
tankers entering the territory of Turkey. We are absolutely convinced today present you the hard
facts about what the final destination of the stolen oil - Turkey. There is a large number of media
representatives, and Our briefing will see more of your colleagues. In this regard, I would like
to say the following. We know and appreciate the work of journalists. We know that in the journalistic
community, many courageous, fearless people honestly do its job. Today, we have clearly shown you
how the illegal trade in oil, the result of which - the financing of terrorism. Provided concrete
evidence that, in our opinion, may be the subject of investigative journalism.
We are confident that the truth with your help will, will find its way. We know the price to Erdogan.
He has already been caught in a lie again Turkish journalists who opened Turkey delivery of arms
and ammunition to militants under the guise of humanitarian convoys. For this imprisoned journalists.
Do not resign Turkish leaders, particularly Mr. Erdogan, and did not recognize, even if their
faces will be smeared by oil thieves. I might be too harsh, but at the hands of the Turkish military
killed our comrades. The cynicism of the Turkish leadership is unlimited. Look what they're doing
?! Climbed to a foreign country, it shamelessly robbed. And if the owners interfere, then they have
to be addressed.
I stress that Erdogan's resignation is not our goal. It is - it is the people of Turkey. Our goal
and the goal to which we urge you, ladies and gentlemen, - joint action to block the sources of funding
for terrorism. We will continue to provide evidence of robbery by Turkey of its neighbors. Maybe
I'll be too straightforward, but the control of these thieves in business can be entrusted only to
the most close people.
No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of Turkey
is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-appointed Minister of Energy? What
a brilliant family business!
This, in general, may elsewhere? Well, once again, of course, such cases can not be charging anyone,
only the closest people. Votes this fact in the Western media we do not see much, but it sure can
not hide the truth. Yes, of course, dirty petrodollars will work. I am sure that there are now discussions
about the fact that everything you see here, - falsification. Well. If it did not - let be allowed
in those places that we showed journalists.
It is obvious that today the publicity was devoted only part of the information about the monstrous
crimes of the Turkish elites who directly finance international terrorism. We believe that any sane
journalist should fight this plague of the XXI century. The world experience has repeatedly argued
that the objective journalism is able to be an effective and formidable tool in the fight against
various financial corruption schemes. We invite colleagues to investigative journalism on the disclosure
of financial schemes and supplies oil from the terrorists to the consumers. Especially since the
oil produced in the controlled militants territories in transit through Turkish ports shipped to
other regions. For its part, the Ministry of Defense of Russia will continue to disclose new evidence
on the supply of terrorists oil to foreign countries and to talk about the conduct of aerospace forces
of Russia operations in Syria.Let's unite our efforts. We will destroy the sources of financing of
terrorism in Syria, as you get involved in the kind of work abroad. "
Latina Lover
Doesn't matter what evidence Putin offers, the USSA Minion Mainstream Media liars will bury,
distort or outright lie to defend Turkey. If Putin wanted any media play, he should photoshop
the detailed evidence on a picture of Kim Kardasians ass.
The good news is that the Turks will figure it out, along with the rest of the world.
The9thDoctor
The main difference between al-CIAduh and CIsisA is that even the dumbest of the dumb have
figured out that ISIL is controlled and equipped by Western Intelligence.
two hoots
John Kerry can explain this....to his own satisfaction.
Gaius Frakkin' ...
I've already seen more evidence for ISIS-Turkey oil trading than Saddam's WMDs... still waiting
for that BTW.
farflungstar
NATO cunts supporting terrorists deserve whatever they get.
There was a lull when the Russians made their entrance into Syria, as Thinktank Land had to
recalibrate their bullshit and get on message for the sheep. A couple weeks later the AmeriKans
are crying crocodile tears over civilians and Russia killing kinder, gentler terrorists rather
than ISIS.
LOL AmeriKans concerned over civilian casualties.
Kirk2NCC1701
And yet, we are still suppose to "Support Our Troops"
If they had 'truth in advertising', they'd call it "Support Our Storm-Troopers", to serve the
Empire
Wise up, people. We have a MERCENARY ARMY -- by Definition.
MERCENARY =
a. You Volunteered 1,
b. You are getting Paid,
c. You have a Contract (with or w/o a Retirement Package)
d. After said Contract has expired, and if Released from further Duty (at sole discretion of
Employer), you may enter a new Contract with a private 'security firm', i.e. "Mercs R US", or
retire to pursue other activities (work for Gov.US, or one of its para-Gov units known as NGOs).
In some cases, you may be so disillusioned or burned out, that you actually join the private sector.
In some rare cases, assuming you haven't killed yourself, you may actually have become an open
or closet anti-war activist. Which makes you a Born-Again Citizen, and a genuine Hero. If you
are married with children, you are a mutha-facking hero, aka... 'Dad'.
[1] It matters not/naught if you're a well-meaning 'Patriot' (10%), a Economic Desperado (85%)
or a Closet Psycho (5%). They'll take you even if you're not a US Citizen. In which case, you
can become one after a mere 2 years, and in the Naturalization Process their Look-back Window
is literally 2 years. I know this for fact. If you want to challenge me on this, you'll have to
put your money where your mouth is, and pony up some serious Cash/BTC
McMolotov
For people of a certain age, "Russia is evil" is their default setting. They literally had
that message pounded into their brains for decades, and unless they frequent alternative media
sites, it's hard to overcome.
I see it with my parents. I can talk to them about this stuff for a few hours and gradually
get them to see glimmers of the truth, but they usually completely revert to their normal thinking
by the next time I see them. It doesn't help that they have Fox News on all the time.
rwe2late
UndergroundPost
Su-24 you say?
There is fair certainty that the SU-24 was hit (inside Syria) by radar-guided missiles(s) fired
by the Turk jets,
and the missiles were guided and the SU-24 targeted by airborne US AWACS.
Im not sure which is worse, domestic frackers and their rape of the the american consumer and
retiree with ridiculous oil and gas prices, junk bond sales to pensioners, etc, or ISIS. ISIS,
in my view is no threat at all. These are contractors working for deep state functionaries intent
on a long-term rape of the global population...but really, just hoodlums intent on taking a vig
from illegal oil sales. Just ask Bush, Cheney, and now the democratic machine. New guys at the
trough.
Frackers, however, are scum of the fucking earth. The business doesnt work unless oil prices
are high. Fuck that. They pay their bills with a junk bond ponzi.
As for frackers themselves...its a tiny fraction of the workforce. Go be auto mechanics or
go back to selling meth, fuckers.
The Canadian Gubmint will need to cut benefits to its citizens for the benefit of newcomers
just as Barry wants to cut SS for Senior Americans so he can import thousands more.
You have to admire their bold manner, they are fearless.
They love warning NATO to back off. http://news.yahoo.com/russia-warns-nato-montenegro-invite-111359017.html
But who doesn't? They are a paper tiger, seems pointless to join them.
They get to build on newly seized territory ala China. http://news.yahoo.com/russia-building-military-bases-islands-claimed-jap...
The annexation of Crimea and Donbas is secure. Oil, gas and currency deals with China, India...nuclear
deals with Iran.
And nobody is stopping him. Who can? That Muzzie faggot pretender in Washington? The toothless
NATO police? The bed-wetting Euro's submitting to Islam?
Ha!
It is a de facto Russian/Chinese world now. Most still have no clue. The kabuki is so strong,
the illusion of states and freedom and wealth...all an illusion.
Pah, who cares? Put on the DWTS, snort some lines and pop the bubbly! All is well!
Goldman Sachs buys into Turkish Petkim's Aegean port 21.07.2014
Hurriyet Daily News – Global leader US investment firm Goldman Sachs has become a partner in
Turkey's largest integrated port, operated by petrochemicals maker Petkim, in a deal that will
boost Petkim's plans to develop the port as the largest in the Aegean region.
Petkim announced that it has reached a preliminary agreement to sell its 30 percent stake in
Petkim Limanc?l?k (Petlim) for USD 250 million, after months of talks beginning in February of
this year.
Petkim and Petlim are controlled by the Turkish branch of Azeri energy giant SOCAR. Petlim
was founded to run the financial operations of Petkim's port in the Alia?a district of the Aegean
province of ?zmir.
"For one of the world's biggest investors to become a partner in our port company means approval
of the value and finance of our project," SOCAR Turkey President Kenan Yavuz said, speaking after
a ceremony to mark the signing of the deal
Urban Redneck
The yahoos at Yahoo!News should really stick to message boards and perhaps one day expand to
fringe blogging (if they can ever pull their heads of their asses). Neither the Russians nor the
Turks are interested in seeing the Straights closed.
The purpose of the Montreaux Convention is to prevent another Russo-Turkish war by guaranteeing
Russia (and other States that border the Black Sea) will have full military and commercial access
to the Straights, while foreign powers will have only limited access. In return for providing
this guarantee Turkey was allowed to build fortification to support its obligations under the
treaty, while maintaining Turkey's natural right to self defense.
Any attempt by Turkey to prevent Russian access to the Straights, is an act of blockade, and
invites either a blockade of Turkish ports (and pipelines) on the Mediterranean, if not another
Russo Turkish war. Closing the Straights is simply not some trump card, and even the Sultan of
Ankara isn't dumb enough to view such an action as a step towards extending his grip on power.
moonshadow
Putin with "checkmate". Erdogan can only flip the board over and walk away muttering to the
int'l crowd somethin bout "Putin...cheater". Great article, Antonov's comments priceless, and
video worth a smirk a minute
Noplebian
The NATO led escalation and it's push towards WW3, continues unabated……
How about detailed evidence on the shooting of the Russian jet?
BOMBSHELL: Ambush of Russian Bomber Was Guided by US Reconnaissance
A U.S. Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS plane took off on 24 November from the Preveza airbase
in Greece. A second E-3A of the Saudi Arabian air force took off from the Riyadh airbase. Both
planes were executing a common task-determining the precise location of Russian aircraft. It is
they that picked the "victim."
Erdogan and his oil-smuggling son, Bilal, will be welcomed as heroes in Neocon-controlled Washington.
Argentina and Paraguay are now for minor criminals only.
Calmyourself
Erdogan you Islamist bastard Ataturk is laughing at you from beyond the grave, GTFO
edit: why the hell has no one dropped cluster munitions on that truck park? US has been there
a year and just missed it? Apparently Obama's (Stalin's) purge of the military has been quite
successful because none of them have any balls.
RockySpears
Because cluster bombs are illegal. Not that this is exactly what they were designed for, but
people cried about the little bomblets that failed to go off and were subsequently "ploughed"
up by civilian farmers.
War is bad, but sometimes it is made worse by the intention to do good.
Same as Chemical weapons, for the most part, they kill no one, they just incapacitate. And
anyway, why is a 1,000lb of TNT NOT chemical?
Calmyourself
Only against civilians and nobody signed on anyway.
"During Desert Storm US Marines used the weapon extensively, dropping 15,828 of the 27,987
total Rockeyes against armor, artillery, and personnel targets. The remainder were dropped by
Air Force (5,346) and Navy (6,813) aircraft.[1]"
Chairman
2003-2006: United States and allies attacked Iraq with 13,000 cluster munitions, containing
two million submunitions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. At multiple times, coalition forces used
cluster munitions in residential areas, and the country remains among the most contaminated by
this day, bomblets posing a threat to both US military personnel in the area, and local civilians.
When these weapons were fired on Baghdad on April 7, 2003 many of the bomblets failed to explode
on impact. Afterward, some of them exploded when touched by civilians. USA Today reported that
"the Pentagon presented a misleading picture during the war of the extent to which cluster weapons
were being used and of the civilian casualties they were causing." On April 26, General Richard
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the US had caused only one civilian casualty.
I used to read the soviet newspaper Pravda and am reading modern western media. And know what?
Pravda was many times more truthful. Many of us, Russians, didn't understand this in soviet times
(we had no access to western papers). But now I can tell this without any doubt. Most of modern
Russian papers are less truthful too.
ThanksChump
I'd be surprised if the WPost ignores this. They did cover the Iraqi claim that the US is backing
ISIS.
Paveway IV
National intelligence agencies watch Facebook, Twitter, Google and other search engines to
see if they have to do damage control. If a few sites come out with articles implicating Bilal
but the 'little people' don't do many searches for him or re-tweet links, then there's no reason
to react. They simply ignore the story. If they notice enough little people start Googling Bilial
and illegal oil sales or retweeting damaging articles, then they let the boss know. The U.S. MSM
is ordered to send out a few stories quoting each other to spin it one way or another.
The government defines the narrative, and MSM stenographers fill in the pieces. Facebook, Twitter
and Google are checked to see if they had the desired effect. They can also use a bit more direct
techniques like massaging the Google search result rankings or blowing away Facebook and Twitter
accounts they don't like. Israel is insane about collecting this data from Americans and reacting.
Uncle Sugar isn't going to cough up that free $3 billion a year handout to them if the people
are in the streets with pitchforks and torches. They are especially interested in de-ranking Google
results that make Israel look bad, and promoting sites that deliver the message they want. Google
is the worst search engine to look for Israeli current events.
You'll notice none of the MSM ISIS oil sales articles will mention U.S. stooge Barzani's involvement,
and they for damn sure won't mention Israel as a destination for much of the stolen oil. They'll
simply steer the narrative to focus on Turkish oil sales, and somehow blame it on Assad.
krispkritter
Obama Administration Supporting Islamic State --> OASIS. It certainly is if you're a terrorist
'rebel' or well-connected oil pimp...
ThanksChump
Occam's Razor.
The US made a deal with OPEC: the US would help to remove Assad, and in return, OPEC would
dump oil to weaken Russia and Iran, fulfilling PNAC/Cheney's pet dream of consolidating the remaining
oil reserves under US-friendly control. ISIS was a tool to that end.
That's the easy obvious part.
Less obvious is the tie to Ukraine. Ukraine should have been "converted" after Assad was driven
out, and not before. This has me confused. Was it only a mistake in timing?
Now that the cat is out of the bag, now that China's overdue correction has been triggered,
now that Brazil and Canada know who is largely responsible for their collapsing economies, now
that Europe knows why they are overrun by refugees, I wonder how friendly those countries will
be moving forward.
2,000 fighters, 250 vehicles and over 120 tons of ammo have been sent in the past weeks
from Turkey to terrorists in Syria, fuelling the violence in the country.
12:31 GMT
Russia cannot comprehend that such a large-scale business as oil smuggling could not have
been noticed by the Turkish authorities. Russia concludes that the Turkish leadership is directly
involved in the smuggling.
12:35 GMT
Russia doesn't expect Turkish President Erdogan to resign in the face of the new evidence,
even though he had promised to do so. His resignation is not Russia's goal and is a matter
for the Turkish people.
SoDamnMad
I' m watching the rebroadcast live right now. Video of all these trucks. Damn good video and
stills. Gee, why can't the USSA produce these(oh yeah, the MSM isn't allowed to show the truth.
Better to show some college campus protest rather than the truth about whose side is really trying
to stop terrorism.) Maybe our reconaissence equipment isn't as good as Russian equipment and our
satelittes can't find the Turkish-Syrian border. Never seen so many trucks back to back, even
on the Jersey Turnpike or the Long Beach Freeway before a holiday when the economy was good.s
a lot of bucks going into Erdogan son's pocket (and Israel's)
"The Islamic State group uses millions of dollars in oil revenues to expand and manage vast
areas under its control, home to around five million civilians.
IS sells Iraqi and Syrian oil for a very low price to Kurdish and Turkish smuggling networks
and mafias, who label it and sell it on as barrels from the Kurdistan Regional Government.
It is then most frequently transported from Turkey to Israel, via knowing or unknowing middlemen,
according to al-Araby's investigation.
The Islamic State group has told al-Araby that it did not intentionally sell oil to Israel,
blaming agents along the route to international markets."
no1wonder
Official media release (and speech translation into English) by Russia's Defense Ministry:
This story is finally hitting the MSM in the U.S. after being reported here for the past week. The powers to be must have needed time to get their lies straight. Anyway, check out the comment section on Yahoo regarding this story. It is almost 100% pro-Russian
and anti-NATO/U.S.
I have never seen anything like this before.
The U.S. public has lost total confidence in the government. They are finally catching on to
the lies and deceit of those in power.
As I read it, according to traditional international law, the Russian Federation may legally
seize Erdogan's Maltese-flagged "neutral" tankers carrying ISIS' crude oil, because that crude
oil constitutes a significant portion of ISIS' war making potential, that tanker then effectively
constituting an enemy merchant vessel, with the tanker's subsequent condemnation in Russian prize
courts, as the capturing belligerent power.
I hope that the Russian Federation's Navy seizes all of Erdogan's tankers, bankrupting Erdogan's
company. Let them then sit in port for the next several years awaiting disposition in a Russian
prize court.
dot_bust
Then there's this rather enlightening bit of information:
ISIS Colonel was Trained By Blackwater and U.S. State Department for 11 Years
A former police commander from Tajikistan was featured in an ISIS video recently where he admitted
he was trained by the U.S. State Department and former military contractor Blackwater all the
way up until last year.
"It was Turkey's national intelligence agency, known as MIT, that first organized Syrian
military defectors into Western-backed groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.
Free Syrian Army factions still convene on Turkish soil in the Joint Operations Center,
a CIA-led intelligence hub that gives vetted rebels training as well as U.S.-made TOW antitank
missiles used to destroy Syrian army tanks and armored units.
Islamist groups, however, have benefited from Turkey's pro-opposition policy as well. In
May, the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published video from 2014 showing customs agents impounding
a truck owned by the MIT. The truck's manifest said it was carrying humanitarian assistance for
Syrians. Instead it was bearing a cache of ammunition and shells the newspaper said were destined
for Islamist rebels. The video's release caused a furor. Erdogan vowed to prosecute Cumhuriyet,
a threat he carried out Friday when authorities arrested two of the paper's journalists on charges
of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization.
Turkish assistance has been instrumental in empowering the Army of Conquest, a loose coalition
of hard-line Islamist factions including Al Nusra Front, which seized control of Idlib province
in March in an offensive backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Economic ties also have been forged between Turkey and rebel factions.
According to a 2015 United Nations study, two border crossings controlled by a faction
of the Army of Conquest handle more than 300 trucks a day, a figure that exceeds prewar levels.
The traffic yields an estimated $660,000 a day. "
Before death in Libya....Ghadaffi's crime was in "not playing along and selling out". Kinda
like Iraq and all. They all should just hand over everything and say thanks...but they did
not . There is disinfo on both sides, But the "madman" and people who actually live there never
seem to make the NYTimes.
"For 40 years, or was it longer, I can't remember, I did all I could to give people houses, hospitals,
schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland from the
desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned daughter,
he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped my brothers and
sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.
I did all I could to help people understand the concept of real democracy, where people's committees
ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes, new
suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They told Americans
and other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and "freedom" never realizing it was a cut throat
system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with those words, never realizing
that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education
and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get soup.
No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the son
of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since Salah-al-Deen, when he
claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps I
tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination - from thieves who would steal from
us.
Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son,
Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our
free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called
"capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the
countries, run the world, and the people suffer. So, there is no alternative for me, I must
make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, the path that has made our
country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab
brothers and sisters to work here with us, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.
I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands
who are all my children, then so be it.
Let this testament be my voice to the world, that I stood up to crusader attacks of NATO, stood
up to cruelty, stood up to betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitions, and that
I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light. When others
were building castles, I lived in a modest house, and in a tent. I never forgot my youth in Sirte,
I did not spend our national treasury foolishly, and like Salah-al-Deen, our great Muslim leader,
who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took little for myself...
In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy", but they know the truth yet continue to lie,
they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my vision, my path,
is, and has been clear and for my people and that I will fight to my last breath to keep us free,
may Allah almighty help us to remain faithful and free.
Kirk2NCC1701
"they hate us for our freedoms"
No, "They hate us for our freebombs" that we keep delivering.
Suppose you lived in a town that was run by a ruthless Mafioso boss. Sure he was ruthless to troublemakers
and dissenters, but if you went about your business (and paid your taxes/respects to him), life was
simple but livable, and crime was negligible.
Now imagine that a crime Overlord came from another country and decided to wreck the town, just
to remove your Mafioso Don. In the process, your neighborhood and house were destroyed, and you lost
friends and family.
Now tell me that YOU would not make it YOUR life's mission to bring these War Criminals to justice
-- by any and all means necessary. And tell me that these same Criminals could not have foreseen
all this. Now say it again - but with a straight face. I dare you. I fucking double-dare you!
Max Cynical
US exceptionalism!
GhostOfDiogenes
The worst one, besides Iraq, is Libya.
The infrastructure we destroyed there is unimaginable.
Sure Iraq was hit the worst, and much has been lost there....but Libya was a modern arab oasis
of a country in the middle of nothing.
We destroyed in a few days what took decades to build.
This is why I am not proud of my country, nor my military.
In fact, I would like to see Nuremberg type trials for 'merican military leaders and concentration
gulags for the rest of enlisted. Just like they did to Germany.
Its only proper.
GhostOfDiogenes
The USA did this murder of Libya and giving ownership to the people who did '911'? What a joke. http://youtu.be/aJURNC0e6Ek
Bastiat
Libya under Ghadaffi: universal free college education, free healthcare, free electricity. interest
free loans. A very bad example of how a nation's wealth is to be distributed!
CHoward
The average American has NO idea how much damage is being done in this world - all in the name of
Democracy. Unbelivable and truly pathetic. Yet - most sheeple still believe ISIS and others hate
us because of our "freedoms" and i-pods. What bullshit.
Compare and contrast Assad, giving an interview very well in a second language, with O'bomb-a,
who can't even speak to school children without a teleprompter. Sad.
Razor_Edge
Along with President Putin, Dr al Assad is consistently the most sane, rational and clearly
honest speaker on the tragedy of Syria. By contrast, our satanic western leaders simply lie
outrageously at all times. How do we know? Their lips are moving. They also say the most
absurd things.
We in the west may think that at the end of the day, it's not going to harm us, so why
discomfort ourselves by taking on our own elites and bringing them down. But I believe that an
horrific future awaits us, one we richly deserve, because we did not shout stop at this ocean
of evil bloodshed being spilt in our names. We pay the taxes that pay for it, or at least in
my countrys case, (traditional policy of military neutrality), we facilitate the slaughter
(troop transports through Shannon airport), or fail to speak out for fear it may impact FDI
into Ireland, (largest recipient of US FDI in the world).
We are our brothers keepers, and we are all one. It is those who seek to separate us to
facilitate their evil and psychopathic lust for power and money, who would have us beieve that
"the other" is evil. Are we really so simple minded or riven by fear that we cannot see
through the curtain of the real Axis of Evil?
Demdere
Israeli-neocon strategy is to have the world's economy collapse at the point of maximum war
and political chaos.
Then they can escape to Paraguay. Sure as hell, if they stay here, we are going to hang them
all. Treasonous criminals for the 9/11 false flag operation.
By 2015, every military and intelligence service and all the think tanks have looked at 9/11
carefully. Anyone who looks at the evidence sees that it was a false flag operation, the
buildings were destroyed via explosives, the planes and evil Arab Muslims were show. Those
agencies reported to their civilian leaders, and their civilian leaders spread the information
through their societies.
So all of the politically aware people in the world, including here at home, KNOW that 9/11
was a false flag operation, or know that they must not look at the evidence. Currently, anyone
who disagrees in MSM is treated as invisible, and I know of no prominent bloggers who have
even done the bits of extention of 'what it must mean' that I have done.
But it certainly means high levels of distrust for the US and for Israel. It seems to me
that World Domination is not possible, because the world won't let you, and the means of
opposition are only limited by the imaginations of the most creative, intelligent and
knowledgable people. We don't have any of those on our side any more.
L Bean
In their farcical quest to emulate the Roman empire...
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt,
pacem appellant - Tacitus
They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they
make a wasteland, they call it peace.
[Nov 30, 2015] The Spanish General could give the order to shoot down Russian su-
This is not very probably hypothesis, but if this is true then it was NATO organized provocation...
"All the airspace in southern Europe from the Azores to the Eastern border of Turkey (Syria, Iraq,
Iran) controlled by the radars mounted on towers airbase in Torrejon near Madrid. Command there 57-year-old
General Ruben Garcia Servert. The final decision in the center of the Combined Air Operations takes
it.
Notable quotes:
"... There is, of course, is an option that responsibility for the attack on "Drying" took over the Turkish General 62-year-old Abidin Unal, but in this case, a high-ranking Spanish military became the main witness giving orders. "If you want to shoot down the aircraft of the enemy, I is the person taking final decision" is a quote from an interview Garcia of Servert given in January of this year to the newspaper "El Mundo". ..."
"All the airspace in southern Europe from the Azores to the Eastern border of Turkey (Syria, Iraq,
Iran) controlled by the radars mounted on towers airbase in Torrejon near Madrid. Command there 57-year-old
General Ruben Garcia Servert. The final decision in the center of the Combined Air Operations takes
it.
There is, of course, is an option that responsibility for the attack on "Drying" took over
the Turkish General 62-year-old Abidin Unal, but in this case, a high-ranking Spanish military became
the main witness giving orders. "If you want to shoot down the aircraft of the enemy, I is the person
taking final decision" is a quote from an interview Garcia of Servert given in January of this year
to the newspaper "El Mundo".
Who actually gave the order to shoot down the su-24, still we do not know. But do know that the
recent crash of the UAV happened at the command of a Turkish General unknown, what was not slow to
inform the military. In October two cases of violation by Russian planes of air space of Turkey Abidin
conceded right to make the final decision to the Spaniard".
"... No, except make a fool of itself by supporting ISIS. We brought ISIS in there (to Syria) - everybody knows that. Just the other day the former head the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said on television that 'Yes, we created ISIS and we used them as henchmen to overthrow governments.' (Laughter). ..."
"... And the polls in Europe show that the people are on Russia's side regarding the shooting down of their aircraft. They don't believe (the West's) story at all. So I think what you are seeing here is the arrogance, hubris, and stupidity of the United States government. They are just handing every possible advantage over to the Russians. ..."
"... Read more here and listen to the full interview... ..."
On the heels of the Chinese stock market plunging 5.5%, continued turmoil in the Middle East and
the price of gold hitting 5 year lows, former U.S. Treasury official,
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts told Eric King of King World News that Putin and the Russians
are now dominating in Syria and the Middle East as the West destroys itself.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: "It could well be that this is going to work out so much in
Russia's favor that Putin will send a letter of thanks to the Turkish President and say, 'Thank
you very much. You've done us a huge favor. (Laughter). We lost a pilot and a naval marine but
we sure have gained a lot. That was only two deaths for winning a war."…
"So that looks to me like the most likely outcome. The unintended consequence of this are so
positive for Russia that it's got Washington quaking and Europe wondering about the idiocy of
being in NATO."
Eric King: "What I'm hearing from you Russia is dominating in Syria. The Russians have
completely taken over and there's really nothing Washington can do."
Paul Craig Roberts: "No, except make a fool of itself by supporting ISIS. We brought
ISIS in there (to Syria) - everybody knows that. Just the other day the former head the Pentagon's
Defense Intelligence Agency said on television that 'Yes, we created ISIS and we used them as
henchmen to overthrow governments.' (Laughter).
And the polls in Europe show that the people are on Russia's side regarding the shooting
down of their aircraft. They don't believe (the West's) story at all. So I think what you are
seeing here is the arrogance, hubris, and stupidity of the United States government. They are
just handing every possible advantage over to the Russians.
This American government is the most incompetent government that has ever walked the earth.
Those people don't have any sense at all. Just look at what they've done. In 14 years they've
destroyed 7 countries, killed millions of people, and displaced millions of people. And where
are those displaced people? They are overrunning Europe.
This is all because those Europeans were stupid enough to enable our wars. Now the political
parties in Europe are under tremendous pressure from these refugees and the populations who object
to them, and from the rising dissident parties who are saying, 'Look at what these people who
you trusted have done. They've changed your country. It's not Germany anymore - it's Syria.' (Laughter).
This is a disaster. Only the stupid Americans could have produced such a disaster. Does Putin
need to do anything? We're doing it all for him. So he doesn't need to do anything. He's not going
to attack anybody. What does he need to attack anybody for? The idiot Americans are destroying
themselves and their allies. This is an amazing fiasco."
"This American government is the most incompetent government that has ever walked
the earth. Those people don't have any sense at all. Just look at what they've done. In
14 years they've destroyed 7 countries, killed millions of people, and displaced millions
of people. And where are those displaced people? They are overrunning Europe."
So true, it must be repeated.
chubbar
It's so incompetent it is looking deliberate.
KingFiat
King World News always says the price of gold is going to the moon tomorrow when the financial
system collapses. After a while you realize no real news comes from there, and ignore them.
Not the same for Paul Craig Roberts, And I am glad to read his insights here, even if originated
from KWN.
CaptainDanite
There is no denying that the KWN site is hokey, and that Eric King has a limited repertoire
of "stunning" adjectives, and that the frequent employment of bold red and blue fonts can be
annoying, etc., etc. However, the simple fact remains that he CONSISTENTLY conducts well-directed
and well-edited interviews with some of the most respected voices in the alternative media
arena. I routinely look forward to his interviews with Nomi Prins, Eric Sprott, Ronald Stoeferle,
and Bill Fleckenstein -- among many, many others. At least KWN is not entirely inundated with
ads like ZH is, nor is the mobile version of the site repeatedly susceptible to adware browser
hijacks like ZH's mobile version is.
Furthermore, while I frequently find points of disagreement with Paul Craig Roberts, this
most recent interview is PCR at his ever-loving best; it strikes to the heart of the matter
of the increasingly frightening conflict brewing between the US, NATO, and the Russians. I
highly recommend this interview to everyone out there who is starting to get very uncomfortable
about the foreign policy incompetence of the Obama administration as it appears to be deliberately
steering us into the maw of WWIII.
"The ultimate cause of evil lies in the interaction of two human factors: 1) normal human
ignorance and weakness and 2) the existence and action of a statistically small (4-8% of the
general population) but extremely active group of psychologically deviant individuals. The
ignorance of the existence of such psychological differences is the first criterion of ponerogenesis.
That is, such ignorance creates an opening whereby such individuals can act undetected.
The presence of such 'disease' on the individual level is described in the Almost Human
section of this website. However, depending on the type of activity of psychopathic and characteropathic
individuals, evil can manifest on any societal level. The greater the scope of the psychopath's
influence, the greater harm done. Thus any group of humans can be infected or 'ponerized' by
their influence. From families, clubs, churches, businesses, and corporations, to entire nations.
The most extreme form of such macrosocial evil is called 'pathocracy'.
"If the many managerial positions are assumed by individuals deprived of sufficient abilities
to feel and understand the majority of other people, and who also exhibit deficiencies in technical
imagination and practical skills - (faculties indispensable for governing economic and political
matters) - this then results in an exceptionally serious crisis in all areas, both within the
country in question and with regard to international relations. Within, the situation becomes
unbearable even for those citizens who were able to feather their nest into a relatively comfortable
modus vivendi. Outside, other societies start to feel the pathological quality of the phenomenon
quite distinctly. Such a state of affairs cannot last long. One must then be prepared for ever
more rapid changes, and also behave with great circumspection." (2nd. ed., p. 140)
I've read about 10 books on the subject and I find this one very intresting, well written
and based on realaity (I think the author is a prof frm harvard).
It really helped me connect the dots while I lived in LA (according to the author one of
3 world'scapitals of psychopathy together with London and NY)
"... "There are security officers who are sympathizing with ISIS in Turkey. They are allowing them to go from Istanbul to the borders and infiltrate ... Syria and Iraq." ..."
"I've shown photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the
illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month on
the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya. Putin was of course referencing Islamic State's illicit
and highly lucrative oil trade, the ins and outs of which we've documented extensively over the past
two weeks:
Turkey's move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border afforded the Russian
President all the motivation and PR cover he needed to expose Ankara's alleged role in the trafficking
of illegal crude from Iraq and Syria and in the aftermath of last Tuesday's "incident," Putin lambasted
Erdogan. "Oil from Islamic State is being shipped to Turkey," Putin said while in Jordan for a meeting
with King Abdullah. In case that wasn't clear enough, Putin added this: "Islamic State gets
cash by selling oil to Turkey."
To be sure, it's impossible to track the path ISIS oil takes from extraction to market with any
degree of precision. That said, it seems that Islamic State takes advantage of the same network of
smugglers, traders, and shipping companies that the KRG uses to transport Kurdish crude from Kurdistan
to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. From there, the oil makes its way to Israel and other markets (depending
on which story you believe) and if anyone needs to be thrown off the trail along the way, there's
a ship-to-ship transfer trick that can be executed off the coast of Malta. The maneuver allegedly
makes the cargoes more difficult to track.
Some believe Erdogan's son Bilal - who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group - is heavily
involved in the trafficking of Kurdish and ISIS crude. Most of the ships BMZ owns are Malta-flagged.
In light of the above, some have speculated that Turkey shot down the Su-24 in retaliation for
Russia's bombing campaign that recently has destroyed over 1,000 ISIS oil trucks. Here's what Syrian
Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said on Friday:
"All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip]
Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against
the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on
Erdogan and his company's nerves. They're importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts
as well."
Al-Zoub isn't alone in his suspicions. In
an interview
with RT, Iraqi MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie - who personally led
Saddam to the gallows - said ISIS is selling around $100 million of stolen crude each month in Turkey.
Here are some excerpts:
"In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth
of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks
from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the
international oil price."
"Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish
refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from
Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market."
"Money and dollars generated by selling Iraqi and Syrian oil on the Turkish black market
is like the oxygen supply to ISIS and it's operation," he added. "Once you cut the oxygen then
ISIS will suffocate."
"There isn't a shadow of a doubt that the Turkish government knows about the oil
smuggling operations. The merchants, the businessmen [are buying oil] in the black market
in Turkey under the noses – under the auspices if you like – of the Turkish intelligence agency
and the Turkish security apparatus."
"There are security officers who are sympathizing with ISIS in Turkey. They are allowing
them to go from Istanbul to the borders and infiltrate ... Syria and Iraq."
"There is no terrorist organization which can stand alone, without a neighboring
country helping it – in this case Turkey."
That's pretty unequivocal. But it gets better.
On Monday, Putin was back at it, saying that Russia has obtained new information that further
implicates Turkey in the Islamic State oil trade. "At the moment we have received additional
information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters
Turkish territory on industrial scale," Putin said on the sidelines of the climate change
summit in Paris. "We have traced some located on the territory of the Turkish Republic and living
in regions guarded by special security services and police that have used the visa-free regime to
return to our territory, where we continue to fight them."
"We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire
to ensure security of this oil's delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers,"
he added, taking it up another notch still.
As for Erdogan, well, he "can't accept" the accusations which he calls "not moral":
ERDOGAN: TURKEY CAN'T ACCEPT RUSSIA CLAIMS THAT IT BUYS IS OIL
LATEST - Erdo?an: Russia's claim that Turkey bought oil from Daesh is not
'moral', such claims have to be proved pic.twitter.com/PZka8MwzpL
Hilariously, the man who just finished starting a civil war just so he could regain a few lost
seats in Parliament and who would just as soon throw you in jail as look at you if he thinks you
might be a threat to his government, now says he will resign if Putin (or anyone else) can present
"proof": "We are not that dishonest as to buy oil from terrorists. If it is proven that we
have, in fact, done so, I will leave office. If there is any evidence, let them present
it, we'll consider [it]."
Hold your breath on that.
And so, the Turkey connection has been exposed and in dramatic fashion. Unfortunately for Ankara,
Erdogan can't arrest Vladimir Putin
like he can award winning journalists and honest police officers who, like Moscow, want to see
the flow of money and weapons to Sunni militants in Syria cut off.
The real question is how NATO will react now that Turkey is quickly becoming a liability. Furthermore,
you can be sure that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (who are all heavily invested in the Sunni extremist
cause in Syria), are getting nervous. No one wants to see this blown wide open as that would mean
the Western public getting wise to the fact that it is indeed anti-ISIS coalition governments that
are funding and arming not only ISIS, but also al-Nusra and every other rebel group fighting to wrest
control of the country from Assad. Worse, if it gets out that the reason the US has refrained from
bombing ISIS oil trucks until now is due to the fact that Ankara and Washington had an understanding
when it comes to the flow of illicit crude to Cehyan, the American public may just insist on indicting
"some folks."
Remember, when it comes to criminal conspiracies, the guy who gets caught first usually ends up
getting cut loose. It will be interesing to see if Erdogan starts to get the cold shoulder from Ankara's
"allies" going forward.
"... "A lot of what we do was done 25 years ago covertly by the CIA" Alan Weinstein, one of the founders of the National Endowment
for Democracy. Although it promotes itself as a "non-governmental organization", NED receives at least 90% of its funding from the US
Congress, earmarked to USAID. ..."
"... Around that time, Soros Foundation 'appeared' in our country and started usual advertising and promises how they will give
money to 'promising' projects made by young people. Of course, we had an amazing thing (it was really hard to make a printed computer
magazine while having civil war and sanctions, heh) and were certain that we would easily qualify for grant. We got rejected. A guy
printing black and white A4 pamphlet saying shit about government got the money. ..."
"A lot of what we do was done 25 years ago covertly by the CIA" Alan Weinstein, one of the founders of the National Endowment
for Democracy. Although it promotes itself as a "non-governmental organization", NED receives at least 90% of its funding from
the US Congress, earmarked to USAID.
JRobby
Maybe the USSA will do the same with "The Council On Foriegn Relations"??
What would we call it when a controlling faction of the USSA Government outlawed itself and declared itself a threat to national
security and Constitutional order?
That's an organization that needs to go. I know some of its membership in NYC. . . It's not evil, per se, but it places self-enrichment
above ethics. That, and since they all have fancy degress and like to pass their resumes around the table, they naturally believe
they know better than the little people what's best for the little peons.
nmewn
"In a statement released on Monday, prosecutors said the activities of the Open Society Institute and the Open Society Institute
Assistance Foundation were a threat to the foundations of Russia's Constitutional order and national security. They added that
the Justice Ministry would be duly informed about these conclusions and would add the two groups to Russia's list of undesirable
foreign organizations."
Yet here, somehow, he is still a major donor to the National Socialist Democrat Party and BlackLiesMatter.
The world, as I once knew it, has been completely turned upside down...lol.
#SafePlace!
/////
Now wut little trolls...how could that possibly offend you? I mean outside of me being absolutely correct about this worthless
POS all these years ;-)
conscious being
I'm suprised it took this long.
Quinvarius
Looks like buying Russian politicians is not so easy. The West however is is craven and corrupt. This is huge set back for
Obama's transvestite, looter, gay, racist agenda of destroying civilization.
blentus
So, there I was, 18 years old, and living in a shitty civil war torn country. Not giving a fuck about anything, me and few
of my friends managed to print a computer magazine and keep it going for a while. It was impossible to make money with it, and
we never did it for the money anyway. It was a good 'distraction' from everything around us, and it also helped other curious
kids. This was before Internet became popular/accessible, so good information was not so easy to obtain.
Around that time, Soros Foundation 'appeared' in our country and started usual advertising and promises how they will give
money to 'promising' projects made by young people. Of course, we had an amazing thing (it was really hard to make a printed computer
magazine while having civil war and sanctions, heh) and were certain that we would easily qualify for grant.
We got rejected. A guy printing black and white A4 pamphlet saying shit about government got the money.
I was lucky enough to learn early how these pieces of shit work.
Every time I hear phrase 'NGO' my brain simply translates it to 'cunts'. Can't help it.
smacker
Something tells me that some very smart people in Moscow have been carefully studying who is creating all this global unrest.
Russia's actions to kick out "Soros Open Society" and the "US National Endowment for Democracy" - neither of which have anything
to do with what their names suggest - is to prevent Russia becoming another victim.
"... Is what you're saying here is that, by extending a lot of credit, the financial sector allowed households to maintain consumption in the face of a permanent decline in income (at least relative to expectation)? That's an important part of the story, I agree. ..."
"... the FIRE sector in particular, are parasitic on the economy. ..."
"... Perhaps financialization isn't so much a thing-in-itself as the mechanism through which wealth concentrates in periods of slow growth? ..."
"... As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk. I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles and busts." ..."
"... Did Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and North Korea do better than the financialized economies of the world? Did the hand of the State in Russia, China and other countries secure better outcomes than the global financial sector in countries that allowed it to operate (albeit with heavy regulation)? ..."
"... The financial system can engage in usury, lending money with no connection to productive investment, by simply creating a parasitic claim on income. There are straightforward ways of doing this: credit cards with high rates of interest or payday lending. There are slightly more complicated approaches: insurance that by design doesn't pay off for the nominal beneficiary. ..."
"... "The biggest economic policy decision of the last thirty years has been the decision to de-socialise a lot of previously socially insured risks and transfer them back to the household sector (in their various capacities as workers, homeowners and consumers of healthcare). The financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision." ..."
"... My feeling (based on nothing but intuition) is that the answer is (d). The government is a tool of moneyed interests. I know, it sounds awfully libertarian, but it is what it is. And I can't foresee any non-catastrophic end to it. ..."
The financialization of the global economy has produced a hugely costly financial sector, extracting
returns that must, in the end, be taken out of the returns to investment of all kinds. The costs
were hidden during the pre-crisis bubble era, but are now evident to everyone, including potential
investors. So, even massively expansionary monetary policy doesn't produce much in the way of
new private investment.
This isn't an original idea. The Bank of International Settlements put out a paper earlier this year
arguing that financial sector growth
crowds out real growth. But how does this work and what can be done about it? I'm still organizing
my thoughts on this, so what I have are some ideas rather than a fully formed argument.
First, if the financial sector is unproductive, how can it be so large and profitable in a market
economy?
There are a few possible explanations
(a) As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its
keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk.
I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles
and busts.
(b) Tax evasion: the global financial sector allows corporations to greatly reduce their tax liabilities.
Most of the savings in tax is captured in the financial sector itself, but the amount flowing to
corporations is sufficient to offset the high costs of the modern financial sector, relative to (for
example) old-style bank finance and simple corporate structures financed by debt and equity
(c) Volatility: the financialization of the economy has produced greatly increased volatility (in
exchange rates, asset prices and so on). The financial sector amplifies and profits from this volatility,
partly through
regulatory arbitrage, and partly through entrenched and systematic fraud as in the
LIBOR and
Forex scandals.
(d) Political capture: The financial sector controls political outcomes in both traditional ways
(political donations, highly revolving door jobs for future and former politicians) and through the
ideology of market liberalism, which is perfectly designed to support policies supporting the financial
sector, while discrediting policies traditionally sought by other parts of the corporate sector,
such as protection for manufacturing industry. The shift to private finance for infrastructure, discussed
in the previous post is part of this. The construction part of the infrastructure sector (which was
always private) has suffered from the reduced flow of projects, but the finance part (previously
managed through government bonds) has
benefited massively.
The result of all this is that the financial sector benefits from an evolutionary strategy similar
to that of an Australian eucalypt forest. Eucalypts are both highly flammable (they generate lots
of combustible oil) and highly fire resistant. So eucalypt forests are subject to frequent fires
which kill competing species, and allow the eucalypts to extend their range.
dsquared 11.29.15 at 1:24 pm
Surely the answer is "risk transfer". The biggest economic policy decision of the last thirty years
has been the decision to de-socialise a lot of previously socially insured risks and transfer them
back to the household sector (in their various capacities as workers, homeowners and consumers of
healthcare). The financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision. Their role
is to provide insurance to the rest of society and this is what they did – in fact, they provided
too much of it, with too little capital which is why they went bust, and why their bankruptcy was
so disastrous (there's nothing worse than an insurer bankruptcy, because it hits you with a big loss
at exactly the worst time). I think c) above is particularly unconvincing, as the biggest stylised
feature of the period of financialisation was the Great Moderation – in fact, the financial sector
stored up volatility that would otherwise have been experienced by other people, including the intermediation
of some genuinely historically massive imbalances associated with the industrialisation of China,
and stored it up until it couldn't hold any more and exploded.
I also don't think LIBOR and FX
fit into that pattern at all very well either. Financial systems have two kinds of problem, which
is why they often have two kinds of regulators. They have prudential problems and conduct problems.
Both LIBOR and FX were old-fashioned profiteering and cartel arrangements, which could happen in
any industry (hey let's talk about drug pricing and indeed university tuition some time). In actual
fact, as I wrote a while ago, it's only LIBOR that can really be considered a scandal – FX was very
much more a case of customers who wanted the benefits of tight regulation but didn't want to pay
for them, and were lucky enough to find a political moment in which the time was right for an otherwise
very unpromising case.
In other words, the answer to all your questions is "leverage". That's why financial systems grew
so fast, that's why they're associated with poor economic performance, and that's why they tend to
show up in periods of secular stagnation – a secular stagnation is almost defined as a period during
which people try to maintain their standard of living by borrowing. Of course, if the financial sector
had been required to hold enough equity capital in the first place, it would never have grown so
big in the first place, and we could all be enjoying the thirteenth year of the post-dot-com bust[1]
in relative contentment.
[1] I am never going to shut up about this. The real estate bubble was a policy-created bubble.
It was blown up in real time and intentionally, by a Federal Reserve which wanted to cushion the
blow of the tech bust. If the financial sector had refused to finance it, the financial sector would
have been trying to run a monetary policy directly opposed to that of the central bank.
I agree that risk transfer is a big deal. On the other hand, it's not obvious that the financial
sector did a lot to insure households against most of the additional risk, or that the Great Moderation
corresponded to a reduction in the volatility faced by households. On the first point, despite massive
financial innovation since 1980, the set of financial instruments easily available to households
hasn't changed all that much. Most obviously, there's no insurance against bad employment and wage
outcomes and home equity insurance hasn't really happened either.
Is what you're saying here
is that, by extending a lot of credit, the financial sector allowed households to maintain consumption
in the face of a permanent decline in income (at least relative to expectation)? That's an important
part of the story, I agree.
The secular stagnation framing of the question leads me to think more about why investment hasn't
responded to monetary policy rather than directly about households.
Yeah, that's my point – the massive extension of credit to households was the financial sector's
role in the big policy shift. At the end of the day, although we might with the benefit of hindsight
agree that "subprime mortgages with no income verification at teaser rates" were a pretty stupid
product that should never have been offered, they were a brand new financial product that had never
been offered to households before! Even the example you mention – "insurance against bad employment
and wage outcomes" – was sort of sold, albeit that what I'm referring to here is Payment Protection
Insurance in the UK, which sort of underlines that it wasn't done well or responsibly.
I guess
my argument here is that it's the combination of deregulation and stagnation that was necessary to
create the 2000s policy disaster. But if we hadn't had the bad products we got, we'd have had something
else go wrong, probably outside the regulated sector. Because the high debt levels were a policy
goal (or at least, were the inevitable and forseeable consequence of trying to do demand management
without fiscal policy), and as I keep saying in different contexts, you can't get to a stupid debt
ratio by only doing sensible things.
The secular stagnation framing of the question leads me to think more about why investment
hasn't responded to monetary policy rather than directly about households.
Isn't the answer to this just the definition of a Keynesian recession? Investment hasn't responded
to monetary policy because there's no interest rate at which it makes sense to produce goods that
can't be sold.
Capital generally, and the FIRE sector in particular, are parasitic on the economy. They provide
some minimal benefits if kept strongly in check, but quickly become destructive if allowed to grow
unchecked, as they have now.
Dumb outsider thought, turning Eggplant @6 upside down: What about r > g? Perhaps financialization
isn't so much a thing-in-itself as the mechanism through which wealth concentrates in periods of
slow growth?
"But if we hadn't had the bad products we got, we'd have had something else go wrong, probably outside
the regulated sector."
A more sophisticated version of the widely debunked theory that Fannie and
Freddie blew up the housing sector by giving loans to poor people. Rule 1: It's never ever the bankers'
fault. Rule 2: see Rule 1. At least d-squared has been consistent…
Which direction is financialization heading? It looks to be decreasing. The mutual fund industry
is in terminal decline, losing market share to ETFs. There are fewer financial advisors today than
in 2008, yet the number of millionaires has increased. Stock trading has broken a 40 year trend of
increasing volumes. Electronic and exchange trading of bonds and derivatives is increasing, driving
down margins. Bots have driven human traders out of jobs (Dark Pools has a good account of this).
Banks are earnings low single digit returns in their trading divisions, which suggests they will
be shut down if things don't improve. It looks like finance is doing a good job of shrinking itself,
with a little help from Elizabeth Warren.
There were several issues and arguments posed in the OP. I'm addressing this:
"First, if the financial
sector is unproductive, how can it be so large and profitable in a market economy?
There are a few possible explanations
(a) As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its
keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk.
I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles
and busts."
D-squared response is of course it's the risk transfer. That flat out contradicts JQ, but d-squared
is a master of the straight face. And then he proceeds - "there has been a decision to desocilaize";
"the financial sector was obviously the conduit for this policy decision"; and "the real estate bubble
was a policy-created bubble."
So JQ, here's your answer of FIRE's ascendancy from an insider: You know me and my friends were
standing around just doing nothin' and then these policy guys come around. Next thing ya know, we've
doubled our share of GDP and put our bosses in the top 0.01%. Who woulda known? Crazy shit, huh?
Hey and if anyone asks, tell 'um "risk transfer." And if they press, tell 'um "secular stagnation."
In fact, tell 'um frickin' anything. It just wasn't our fault.
I know that I shall have to read John Kay's Other People's Money at some point.
I am wondering what people make of the old the then Marxist Hilferding's concept of promoters' profit
as a way to understand some financial sector activity. I posted this here a few years back.
Here's his example, and I am trying to figure out to the extent that it throws light on the recent
activity of Wall Street.
Start with an industrial firm with a capital of 1,000,000 marks that makes a profit of 150,000
marks with the average profit of 15 percent.
With an interest rate of 5% straight capitalization of income of 150,000 marks will have an estimated
price of 3,000,000 marks (150,000/.05=3,000,000 marks)
A deduction of 20,000 marks for the various administration costs and directors fees would make
the actual payment to shareholders 130,000 rather 150,000 marks
A risk premium of, say, 2% would be added to a fixed safe rate of interest of 5% in estimating
the actual stock price
So what, then, is the stock price (130,000/.07)? 1,857,143 or roughly 1,900.000 marks
This 900,000 is free after deducting the initial investment of 1,000,000 marks
The balance of 900, 000 marks appears as promoters' profit which arises from the conversion of
profit-bearing capital into interest bearing capital.
In 1910, Hilferding called this promoters profit, an economic category sui generis; it is earned
by the promoter by selling of stocks or the securitizing of income on the capital market.
For Hilferding the investment bank, which promotes the conversion of profit-bearing to interest-bearing
capital, claims the promoters profit.
The analysis seems pertinent to the securitization process today, and I would love to hear Henwood's
and others' thoughts about this.
As Roubini and Mihm have pointed out, we have seen the securitization of mortgages, consumer loans,
student loans, auto loans, airplane leases, revenues from forests and mines, delinquent tax liens,
radio tower loans, boat loans, state revenues, the royalties of rock bands!
We have seen, in their words, an explosion in the selling of future income of dependable projected
revenue streams such as rents or interest payments on mortgage payments as securities.
That securitization been driven by investors' quest for yield lift given the low rate of interest,
itself the result of the global savings glut and Fed policy.
And it seems that Wall Street, with the connivance of the credit agencies, was able to appropriate
value from the purchasers of securities by understating the risk premia.
The risk premium and promoters' profit are inversely correlated so there is a strong incentive
to understate the former. This is what Hilferding did not say, but seems worth emphasizing today.
I sincerely do not understand your point here. I'm not arguing, just asking for clarification:
(a) As in the official theory of efficient markets, the financial sector is actually earning its
keep by allocating capital to the most productive investments, and by spreading and managing risk.
I don't see how anyone can argue this with a straight face in the light of the last 20 years of bubbles
and busts.
For one thing, I don't see that the two bubbles and one bust of 1996 – 2015 are self-evidently
worse than the more numerous bubbles and busts of 1976 – 1995. You might say the 2008 brush with
Great Depression outweighs the hyperinflation and multiple deep recessions of the earlier era, but
certainly the Internet and housing bubbles were more productive and less threatening than the commodity,
Japan, emerging debt and other bubbles. Anyway, it's a close enough comparison that someone could
certainly keep a straight face while saying that in the last 20 years financial volatility inflicted
less real economic damage than in the preceding 20 years.
But the bigger issue is no one claims the financial system encourages steady growth. Creative
(bubble) destruction (bust) is the rule. It is command economies that outlaw bubbles and busts–and
inflation and unemployment–at the cost of unproductive employment, empty shelves, stifled innovation,
loss of freedom and other consequences.
If you want to argue that the financial system did not earn its profits in the last 20 years,
it seems to me you have to argue that economic growth was slow, or that more people in the world
are in poverty today, or that there was not enough innovation; not that the ride was too volatile.
Did Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and North Korea do better than the financialized economies of the
world? Did the hand of the State in Russia, China and other countries secure better outcomes than
the global financial sector in countries that allowed it to operate (albeit with heavy regulation)?
It is certainly possible to argue that we could have had more growth and innovation and poverty
reduction; and less volatility; with some third way that's better than both our current financial
system and the alternatives practiced in the world today. But that point is not so obvious that any
defender of the global financial system must be joking.
Why do you think the booms and busts of the last 20 years are such a clear and damning indictment
of the financial system that the point needs no further elaboration?
The financial system can engage in usury, lending money with no connection to productive investment,
by simply creating a parasitic claim on income. There are straightforward ways of doing this: credit
cards with high rates of interest or payday lending. There are slightly more complicated approaches:
insurance that by design doesn't pay off for the nominal beneficiary.
There are really complicated
ways of doing this: derivatives, for example, which blow up (and as an added bonus, undermine the
informational efficiency of financial markets).
I keep thinking of Piketty's r > g: the ever-accumulating pile of money rising like a slow, but
unstoppable tide. It has to be invested or "invested" - that is, it can buy the assembly of resources
into productive capital assets that represent financial claims on the additional income generated
by business innovation and expansion . . . OR . . . it can be used to finance the parasitic and predatory
manipulations of an emergent neo-feudalism.
Where the secular stagnation thesis is not pure apologetic fraud, I would interpret it as saying,
there are currently few opportunities to invest in additional productive "real" capital stock. For
technological reasons, the new systems require much less capital than the old systems, so when an
old telephone company replaces its expensive copper wire with fiber optics and cellphone towers,
it may be able to fund a large part of the transition out of current cash-flow, even while maintaining
the value of the bonds that once represented investment in a mountain of copper, but are now just
rentier claims on an obsolete world.
In the brave new world, a handful of companies, who have lucked into commercial positions with
high rents, throw off a lot of cash. So, the Apples and Intels do not need to be allocated new capital,
but their distribution of cash to people who don't need it, is generating a lot of demand for "financial
product". The rest of the business world is just trying to manage a slow decline, able to throw off
modest amounts of cash, desperate to find sources of political power that might yield reliable rents,
but without opportunities to innovate that would actually require net investment in excess of current
cashflows from operations.
So, the financial system is just responding to this enlarged demand for non-productive investment
in financial products that generate return from parasitic extraction.
In the interest of parasitic extraction, the financial system pursues the politics of neoliberal
privatization as a means of generating financial products to satisfy demand.
re volatility, the thing you really want to worry about is liquidity. Pre-crash banks could warehouse
risk and so provide liquidity. One consequence was volatility was recorded because liquid markets
allowed prices to be observed.
Regulators have observed the conflict of interest caused by banks
providing a financial service but also participating in the markets with their own money, and have
acted to restrict banks from holding risk for proprietary trading (the Volcker rule). This is fine,
but there has been a noticeable decrease in liquidity in what were once deep markets. The EURCHF
un-pegging in Jan this year is a good example of reduced liquidity resulting in a massive move. There
may well be more of this to come.
"The biggest economic policy decision of the last thirty years has been the decision to de-socialise
a lot of previously socially insured risks and transfer them back to the household sector (in their
various capacities as workers, homeowners and consumers of healthcare). The financial sector was
obviously the conduit for this policy decision."I can't tell if you are arguing with John or agreeing
with him. Is this agreement with his d) [the political capture explanation]? I don't know very much
about the deep history of financial regulation, but I'm fairly certain that most voters have never
put desocialization of risk in their top 5 concerns. Is it possible that the financial sector was
the obvious conduit because they were among the important authors of the ideas?
In my opinion, finance had a passive role in the build
up of the crisis.
Others have said similar things uptread, however this is my opinion:
1) the wage share of GDP depends largely on political choices; since the late seventies there
has been a trend of a falling wage share more or less everywhere, as countries with a lower wage
share are more competitive on the world market.
2) a falling wage share means a rising profit share, and "capitalists" tend to reinvest part of their
profits, so a falling wage share caused a worldwide saving glut.
3) this worldwide saving glut caused an increased financialisation and a bubbling up of the price
of some assets, particularly those assets whose supply is inelastic (for example, the value of distribution
chains or of famous consumer brands).
4) this in turn causes an increased volatility of financial markets, and worse financial crises.
This situation is what we perceive as a secular stagnation, and IMHO depends mostly on a low worldwide
wage share.
Unfortunately, I have no idea of how to reach an higher wage share, and I don't think "the market"
has any mechanism to push up said wage share.
Bruce,
What you are saying makes sense to me. Steven Pressman has also raised the question of how r is to
be maintained with "an abundance of capital and its need for high rates of return." (Understanding
Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century).
It's almost as if Piketty in his criticism of the rentier has a rentier's disregard for how the returns
are actually to be made. To the extent that he considers production it is through marginal productivity
theory. Piketty claims that marginal rate of substitution of capital for labor will remain above
unity (and too bad Piketty dismissed the Cambridge Capital critique because Ian Steedman has used
Sraffian theory to show the possibilities of high profits in even a fully automated economy).
Of course as Pressman implies, this "technical" view may blind us to the higher exploitation that
may be necessary for returns to continue to remain high as capital becomes more abundant. Pressman
also implies that Piketty also does not consider how finance can make higher rates of return by making
higher-interest loans to weaker parties while having them absorb most of the risk (this would be
your second kind of investment).
" I don't know very much about the deep history of financial regulation, but I'm fairly certain that
most voters have never put desocialization of risk in their top 5 concerns."
Of course not, but
there are actors here other than "the public" and "the banks". In this case, I'm pretty sure Daniel
is referring to the destruction of unionized middle class jobs with pensions and cheap-to-the-worker
health insurance, which was carried out by their employers. While I doubt I could pick a bank owner
out of a lineup filled out with captains of industry, they aren't actually interchangeable.
"Of course, if the financial sector had been required to hold enough equity capital
in the first place, it would never have grown so big in the first place, and we could all be enjoying
the thirteenth year of the post-dot-com bust[1] in relative contentment."
Secular stagnation to me just means not enough macro (monetary/fiscal) policy to keep up aggregate
demand for full employment and target inflation.
Monetary and fiscal policy is being blocked by politics partly because filthy rich financiers
are buying their way into politics:
The question about Dsquare's alternate history I would have is: what is the response of fiscal
and monetary policy to the "domestication" of the financial sector via higher capital requirements
and leverage regulations, etc.?
If fiscal and monetary policy keeps the economy at a high-pressure level with full employment
and rising wages, I don't see why secular stagnation is a problem.
But politics is blocking fiscal and monetary policy. Professor Quiggin talks of "massive" monetary
policy, but it wasn't massive given the need. (It was massive compared to past recoveries.) It was
big enough to avoid deflation despite unprecedented fiscal austerity. It wasn't big enough to hit
their inflation target in a timely matter.
My feeling (based on nothing but intuition) is that the answer is (d). The government is a tool of
moneyed interests. I know, it sounds awfully libertarian, but it is what it is. And I can't foresee
any non-catastrophic end to it.
"... As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol , continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it. ..."
"... Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer ..."
"... Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity ..."
"... when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers. ..."
We concluded by asking "how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding
the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when
buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments,
and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as
long as it has?"
To be sure, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure
was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the
fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit
in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son,
Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but
prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable
of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.
This past week, someone finally came up with a "reason" why the Obama administration had been
so impotent at denting the Islamic State's well-greased oil machine. In an interview on
PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed
out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers,
to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn't order
the bombing of ISIS's oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about
environmental damage.
Yes, he really said that:
We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't
want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.
In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris
bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's
hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.
Brilliant.
As the
Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure
that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized
for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed
"rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where
the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge,
and flood Europe, since World War II.
But back to Obama's alleged decision that not polluting the environment is more important
than halting the funding artery that keeps ISIS in business.
Morell continued "Prior to Paris, there seemed to be a judgment that look, we don't want to
destroy these oil tankers because that's infrastructure that's going to be necessary to support the
people when ISIS isn't there anymore, and it's going to create environmental damage. And we didn't
go after oil wells - actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn't want to do environmental
damage and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure, right."
Then we started asking questions, others joined in, and everything changed: "So now we're hitting
oil in trucks and maybe you get to the point where you say we also have to hit oil wells. So those
are the kind of tough decisions you have to make."
So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can't eradicate the
primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of
dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.
We are truly speechless at this idiocy.
Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated
by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal
profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of
ISIS' cheap oil, and which
involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this
day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.
For those who can't believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not
some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.
Looney
Morell is the same spook who "edited" Susan Rice's Benghazi SNAFU. Why don't all these assholes
like Morell, Greenspan, Bernanke, just shut up, crawl under a rock, and hope they're never found?
;-)
Buckaroo Banzai
The media is in the tank for cunts like this, and most people just don't bother paying attention
anyway. If Charlie Rose asked tough questions, his career would have ended before it even began.
Instead he makes a wonderful living playing the kindly avuncular shill.
Ignatius
There is no lie these murderous cunts won't tell. I guess depleted uranium is not an environmental
concern? Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em.
Pladizow
----> Not OK to spill oil
----> OK to spill blood
JustObserving
2400 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq and 1000 tons in Afghanistan.
Fallujah cancer rates worse than Hiroshima due to use of depleted uranium. Leukemia rates 38
times higher than normal https://vimeo.com/38175279
Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer
"In a follow up study, in which Dr Busby was a co-author, hair, soil and water samples were
taken from Fallujah and tested for the presence of heavy metals. The researchers expected to find
depleted uranium in the environmental samples. It is well known that the US used depleted uranium
weapons in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war; and Iraqis, at least, are well aware of the increases
in cancers and infant mortality rates in the city of Basrah, which was heavily bombarded during
Desert Storm. However, what the researchers found was not depleted uranium, but man-made, slightly
enriched uranium."
"Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related
health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind,
care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. "
"Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s)
causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted
uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current
study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah."
It's not necessarily a lie, but it is necessarily a straw man and red herring, which distracts
from a conversation of the forgone alternatives to achieve the (supposedly) desired ends. Charlie
cocksucker and his mindless followers apparently buy the implicit argument the only tools in the
almighty CIA's chest to combat ISIS's operations funding with oil revenues was "bombing Syria's
(relatively tiny) oil fields" and creating an environmental catastrophe somehow akin to Saddam
in Kuwait...
'Muricans are getting exactly the government the (collectively) deserve.
Lore
I think the psychopaths don't give a shit. Remember the scale of MONEY and CONTROL at stake.
If you want to disable an insubordinate regime for standing up to your plans for regional hegemony
and energy supply, you punish the host population by taking out key infrastructure. So for starters,
place the launch triggers for all the drone strikes and aircraft sorties in the hands of obedient
lackies who follow orders without giving a shit, assemble a list of strategic targets, and then
announce "Aha! ISIS happens to be standing directly in front of this strategically-important piece
of infrastructure" (bridge, refinery, storage tank, whatever), and then press the button. Proxy
war is simply the policy of blaming somebody else for your own rotten behaviour. If the Syrian
people are displaced, so much the better, because mass migration conveniently handicaps the economies
of nations in Europe that might get in the way of continued button-pushing.
It's fucking evil, from start to finish. There was a time when it was a compliment to be called
a Company Man, but nowadays it just means you're a pathological liar and a whore and a louse.
NoDebt
So they'll blow up wedding parties and whatever innocent civilians happen to be around their
"targets" but they won't dare touch an oil well.
That speaks volumes. Delusional is the wrong word. Makes it sound like it's not their fault
or something.
KesselRunin12Parsecs
"We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't
want to do environmental damage"
So now explain 'SCORCHED EARTH POLICY' after you presumably rescued babies from incubators
in 1991 you POS mF'er.
Kirk2NCC1701
Actually, he's telling you everything he can and you need to know or figure out.
Y'all must be 'Mericans, cause you can't read between the lines or read the situation/context.
Allow me to translate for you:
1. He's under an NDA, and must keep his Oath of Secrecy.
2. If he gives you a blatantly BS answer, it is YOUR job to figure out that he (a) can't tell
you the truth and (b) that it's Code for "Yes we support them to the hilt, and use Middle-men
and Cutouts as SOP, but also we deny everything as SOP."
Normalcy Bias
He reminds me of his movie counterpart, the 'Robert Ritter, CIA Deputy Director' character
from Clear and Present Danger.
Evil, arrogant, smug, and devoid of any conscience...
Meanwhile:US and Turkey cease flights over Syria, as Russia deploys 7000 troops to Turkish
border with Armenia
Chris88
We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because
we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.
..damage a perfectly good CIA creation.
Junerberno
After the attack by Boko Haram (Al Qaeda) on the shopping mall in Nairobi, the US moved to
seize a senior Al Qaeda operative living in a mansion in North Africa. We knew where he was all
along, but never went after him, until after the attack. He was "made" by the Saudis and we were
appeasing him while he was "doing good" (killing Shia) but when he stepped out of line we punished
him. It's certain we asked for permission before arresting him finally, of course.
Pausing, because it must sink in: Al Qaeda. Who attacked us 9-11. Our brownshirts.
So now we suddenly care about ISIL after they "step out of line" in Paris. They were our friends
when they were sawing the heads off Shia. But they stepped out of line so we used a stick on their
hands.
The US knows where all of ISIL are at all times. ISIL has been permitted to slaughter everyone
in its path because they are focused on killing Shia, and Israel supports a holocaust against
Shia muslims.
earleflorida
when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed,
etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and...
guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank
with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers.
But they can bomb the fuck out of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. setting those countries back to the
stone age, displacing and killing millions, destroying historical buildings, build nuke plants
on fault lines, gmo food, flouride poison in our water, spraying shit in the skies etc....but
NOOOO!!, we cant bomboil oil infrastructures that are helping arm the terrorists...what a fucking
liar piece of shit..
marcusfenix
this is some epic and absurd bullfuckingshit to the highest degree right here.
if they had no plans to hit IS in the one way it would really hurt them, in the only way it
would make any difference then it begs the question....
why bother bombing them at all?
these people are not stupid, they know exactly how war works, how to wage it properly and how
to defeat an enemy. and yet they try and sell the idiotic idea that they did not go after the
most valuable and vulnerable of IS assets out of environmental concerns?
really?
and this is exactly why the "coalition" warned the Syrian air force against carrying out missions
in these areas, outright threatened them in fact. to provide air cover and a safe route for IS
oil to find it's way into Turkey and Iraq. and it worked, it was smooth sailing and billions all
around right up until Moscow stepped in and literally started blowing up the program.
the "save the environment" excuse doesn't play on any level and WFT good does it do the Syria
people for this infrastructure to exist so long as IS controls it, they sure as shit are not benefiting
from it. in fact it only hurts them more because the longer IS can make billions off the sale
of this oil the longer this war will drag on.
the longer the war drags on the more innocent Syrian's die so it would in fact be better for
the common people of Syria for this oil pipeline to be destroyed and ISIS starved to death. then
afterwords the Syrians can go ahead and start rebuilding the infrastructure. but there won't be
an afterwords so long as IS can make that money and fund there whole drug soaked, murderous operation.
and I wonder what the citizens of Paris think about the environmental concerns vs wiping out
the islamic states revenue stream?
all this sudden care and concern flowing from DC about civilians, about oil smugglers, civilian
infrastructure and mother earth makes me want to vomit.
because it's all just a never ending stream of bullshit and lies.
sometimes, in the darkest corners of my mind, I do sincerely wonder weather nuclear war might
just the only thing that will bring this lunacy to an end. not saying i want it to happen or that
i want to live through it but it might just be the only way for somebody, somewhere in the world
to get a fresh start free of this insane asylum we all live in.
"... As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol , continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it. ..."
"... Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer ..."
"... Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity ..."
"... when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers. ..."
We concluded by asking "how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding
the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when
buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments,
and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as
long as it has?"
To be sure, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure
was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the
fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit
in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son,
Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but
prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable
of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.
This past week, someone finally came up with a "reason" why the Obama administration had been
so impotent at denting the Islamic State's well-greased oil machine. In an interview on
PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed
out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers,
to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn't order
the bombing of ISIS's oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about
environmental damage.
Yes, he really said that:
We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't
want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.
In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris
bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's
hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.
Brilliant.
As the
Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure
that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized
for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed
"rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where
the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge,
and flood Europe, since World War II.
But back to Obama's alleged decision that not polluting the environment is more important
than halting the funding artery that keeps ISIS in business.
Morell continued "Prior to Paris, there seemed to be a judgment that look, we don't want to
destroy these oil tankers because that's infrastructure that's going to be necessary to support the
people when ISIS isn't there anymore, and it's going to create environmental damage. And we didn't
go after oil wells - actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn't want to do environmental
damage and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure, right."
Then we started asking questions, others joined in, and everything changed: "So now we're hitting
oil in trucks and maybe you get to the point where you say we also have to hit oil wells. So those
are the kind of tough decisions you have to make."
So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can't eradicate the
primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of
dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.
We are truly speechless at this idiocy.
Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated
by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal
profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of
ISIS' cheap oil, and which
involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this
day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.
For those who can't believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not
some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.
Looney
Morell is the same spook who "edited" Susan Rice's Benghazi SNAFU. Why don't all these assholes
like Morell, Greenspan, Bernanke, just shut up, crawl under a rock, and hope they're never found?
;-)
Buckaroo Banzai
The media is in the tank for cunts like this, and most people just don't bother paying attention
anyway. If Charlie Rose asked tough questions, his career would have ended before it even began.
Instead he makes a wonderful living playing the kindly avuncular shill.
Ignatius
There is no lie these murderous cunts won't tell. I guess depleted uranium is not an environmental
concern? Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em.
Pladizow
----> Not OK to spill oil
----> OK to spill blood
JustObserving
2400 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq and 1000 tons in Afghanistan.
Fallujah cancer rates worse than Hiroshima due to use of depleted uranium. Leukemia rates 38
times higher than normal https://vimeo.com/38175279
Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer
"In a follow up study, in which Dr Busby was a co-author, hair, soil and water samples were
taken from Fallujah and tested for the presence of heavy metals. The researchers expected to find
depleted uranium in the environmental samples. It is well known that the US used depleted uranium
weapons in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war; and Iraqis, at least, are well aware of the increases
in cancers and infant mortality rates in the city of Basrah, which was heavily bombarded during
Desert Storm. However, what the researchers found was not depleted uranium, but man-made, slightly
enriched uranium."
"Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related
health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind,
care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. "
"Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s)
causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted
uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current
study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah."
It's not necessarily a lie, but it is necessarily a straw man and red herring, which distracts
from a conversation of the forgone alternatives to achieve the (supposedly) desired ends. Charlie
cocksucker and his mindless followers apparently buy the implicit argument the only tools in the
almighty CIA's chest to combat ISIS's operations funding with oil revenues was "bombing Syria's
(relatively tiny) oil fields" and creating an environmental catastrophe somehow akin to Saddam
in Kuwait...
'Muricans are getting exactly the government the (collectively) deserve.
Lore
I think the psychopaths don't give a shit. Remember the scale of MONEY and CONTROL at stake.
If you want to disable an insubordinate regime for standing up to your plans for regional hegemony
and energy supply, you punish the host population by taking out key infrastructure. So for starters,
place the launch triggers for all the drone strikes and aircraft sorties in the hands of obedient
lackies who follow orders without giving a shit, assemble a list of strategic targets, and then
announce "Aha! ISIS happens to be standing directly in front of this strategically-important piece
of infrastructure" (bridge, refinery, storage tank, whatever), and then press the button. Proxy
war is simply the policy of blaming somebody else for your own rotten behaviour. If the Syrian
people are displaced, so much the better, because mass migration conveniently handicaps the economies
of nations in Europe that might get in the way of continued button-pushing.
It's fucking evil, from start to finish. There was a time when it was a compliment to be called
a Company Man, but nowadays it just means you're a pathological liar and a whore and a louse.
NoDebt
So they'll blow up wedding parties and whatever innocent civilians happen to be around their
"targets" but they won't dare touch an oil well.
That speaks volumes. Delusional is the wrong word. Makes it sound like it's not their fault
or something.
KesselRunin12Parsecs
"We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't
want to do environmental damage"
So now explain 'SCORCHED EARTH POLICY' after you presumably rescued babies from incubators
in 1991 you POS mF'er.
Kirk2NCC1701
Actually, he's telling you everything he can and you need to know or figure out.
Y'all must be 'Mericans, cause you can't read between the lines or read the situation/context.
Allow me to translate for you:
1. He's under an NDA, and must keep his Oath of Secrecy.
2. If he gives you a blatantly BS answer, it is YOUR job to figure out that he (a) can't tell
you the truth and (b) that it's Code for "Yes we support them to the hilt, and use Middle-men
and Cutouts as SOP, but also we deny everything as SOP."
Normalcy Bias
He reminds me of his movie counterpart, the 'Robert Ritter, CIA Deputy Director' character
from Clear and Present Danger.
Evil, arrogant, smug, and devoid of any conscience...
Meanwhile:US and Turkey cease flights over Syria, as Russia deploys 7000 troops to Turkish
border with Armenia
Chris88
We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because
we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.
..damage a perfectly good CIA creation.
Junerberno
After the attack by Boko Haram (Al Qaeda) on the shopping mall in Nairobi, the US moved to
seize a senior Al Qaeda operative living in a mansion in North Africa. We knew where he was all
along, but never went after him, until after the attack. He was "made" by the Saudis and we were
appeasing him while he was "doing good" (killing Shia) but when he stepped out of line we punished
him. It's certain we asked for permission before arresting him finally, of course.
Pausing, because it must sink in: Al Qaeda. Who attacked us 9-11. Our brownshirts.
So now we suddenly care about ISIL after they "step out of line" in Paris. They were our friends
when they were sawing the heads off Shia. But they stepped out of line so we used a stick on their
hands.
The US knows where all of ISIL are at all times. ISIL has been permitted to slaughter everyone
in its path because they are focused on killing Shia, and Israel supports a holocaust against
Shia muslims.
earleflorida
when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed,
etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and...
guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank
with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers.
But they can bomb the fuck out of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. setting those countries back to the
stone age, displacing and killing millions, destroying historical buildings, build nuke plants
on fault lines, gmo food, flouride poison in our water, spraying shit in the skies etc....but
NOOOO!!, we cant bomboil oil infrastructures that are helping arm the terrorists...what a fucking
liar piece of shit..
marcusfenix
this is some epic and absurd bullfuckingshit to the highest degree right here.
if they had no plans to hit IS in the one way it would really hurt them, in the only way it
would make any difference then it begs the question....
why bother bombing them at all?
these people are not stupid, they know exactly how war works, how to wage it properly and how
to defeat an enemy. and yet they try and sell the idiotic idea that they did not go after the
most valuable and vulnerable of IS assets out of environmental concerns?
really?
and this is exactly why the "coalition" warned the Syrian air force against carrying out missions
in these areas, outright threatened them in fact. to provide air cover and a safe route for IS
oil to find it's way into Turkey and Iraq. and it worked, it was smooth sailing and billions all
around right up until Moscow stepped in and literally started blowing up the program.
the "save the environment" excuse doesn't play on any level and WFT good does it do the Syria
people for this infrastructure to exist so long as IS controls it, they sure as shit are not benefiting
from it. in fact it only hurts them more because the longer IS can make billions off the sale
of this oil the longer this war will drag on.
the longer the war drags on the more innocent Syrian's die so it would in fact be better for
the common people of Syria for this oil pipeline to be destroyed and ISIS starved to death. then
afterwords the Syrians can go ahead and start rebuilding the infrastructure. but there won't be
an afterwords so long as IS can make that money and fund there whole drug soaked, murderous operation.
and I wonder what the citizens of Paris think about the environmental concerns vs wiping out
the islamic states revenue stream?
all this sudden care and concern flowing from DC about civilians, about oil smugglers, civilian
infrastructure and mother earth makes me want to vomit.
because it's all just a never ending stream of bullshit and lies.
sometimes, in the darkest corners of my mind, I do sincerely wonder weather nuclear war might
just the only thing that will bring this lunacy to an end. not saying i want it to happen or that
i want to live through it but it might just be the only way for somebody, somewhere in the world
to get a fresh start free of this insane asylum we all live in.
Terrorism is typically ideologically driven and as such has no nationality. But this case looks
like an e4xception: Turkish media machine has already asssigned this crime to certain mythical "Syrian
Turkomans".
But in reality this looks like Grey Wolfs not "Turkomans", and their leader is a Turkish neo-fascist
Alpaslan Celik - son of the mayor of a small Turkish town. Golden youth so to speak.
Turkey has initiated the process to hand over the body of a
Russian pilot to Moscow
after his jet was shot down by Turkey, a day before a United Nations climate conference starts in
Paris that could bring a
"saddened" Turkish president and his
Russian counterpart together.
In a press briefing held at Ankara's airport prior to his departure for a EU-Turkey Summit in
Brussels on Nov. 29, Turkish Prime Minister
Ahmet Davutoğlu
said the body of Russian
pilot Oleg Peshkov, who died after his plane was downed by Turkish F-16s on Nov. 24 when it reportedly
breached Turkish airspace for 17 seconds, had been taken by Turkey and would be sent to
Russia on its request.
"... Their main source of income is oil sales, but they also resource to taxes to the population,
sales of antiquities, bank raids, appropriation of part of Iraq salaries to government employees in
occupied areas that are still being paid, extortion to businesses, appropriation of part of crops, ransoms
and slave sales. Some of the magnitudes are estimated. ..."
"... The income from oil is estimated at 1.5 million dollars per day from 34-40,000 barrels per
day at 20-35 $ per barrel. ..."
"... Their main expense is calculated at 10 million dollars per month (0.33 mill $/day) in salaries.
They pay almost a fifth of their income in salaries, and that is one of the reasons of their popularity.
..."
"... Recently the international coalition, with France taking a very active role, has started bombing
their oil facilities, thus attacking the jugular of ISIS. They must be desperate because they see no
way of protecting their oil financing from air attacks. After a very long time of successes, ISIS is
now having problems to hold its ground in parts of Syria and Kurdistan. ..."
This article in Spanish from one of the main journals explains how ISIS is financing.
Their main source of income is oil sales, but they also resource to taxes to the population, sales
of antiquities, bank raids, appropriation of part of Iraq salaries to government employees in
occupied areas that are still being paid, extortion to businesses, appropriation of part of crops,
ransoms and slave sales. Some of the magnitudes are estimated.
The income from oil is estimated at 1.5 million dollars per day from 34-40,000 barrels
per day at 20-35 $ per barrel.
Their main expense is calculated at 10 million dollars per month (0.33 mill $/day) in salaries.
They pay almost a fifth of their income in salaries, and that is one of the reasons of their popularity.
Recently the international coalition, with France taking a very active role, has started
bombing their oil facilities, thus attacking the jugular of ISIS. They must be desperate because
they see no way of protecting their oil financing from air attacks. After a very long time of
successes, ISIS is now having problems to hold its ground in parts of Syria and Kurdistan.
I have family in Paris. My niece, her husband and all his family are in Paris. None of them
was present in the attacks, but we are all shocked by the magnitude.
Caelan MacIntyre, 11/13/2015 at 8:02 pm
"Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines
between war and politics, combatants and civilians.
The term was first used in 1989 by a team of American analysts, including William S. Lind,[citation
needed] to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern
warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their near-monopoly on
combat forces , returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times." ~ Wikipedia
Ironically, much of it is and will be the result of the nation states' monopolies on violence
enacted.
"... Yesterday, McInerney told Fox News – much to the surprise of the reporter interviewing him – that assuming the Turkish version of the flight path of the Russian jet is accurate, Russia wasn't ..."
"... As the International Court of Justice ruled in the seminal Nicaragua case (1986), any use of force even in alleged self-defense must also fulfill the basic customary international law requirements of (1) necessity and (2) proportionality. Even accepting the government of Turkeys version of events, it does not appear that there was any necessity for Turkey to destroy the Russian jet. ..."
"... From another [International Court of Justice] case, the basic test for "necessity" is that the necessity of self-defense must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation. Clearly, that was not the case here. ..."
In his role as Norad commander for Alaska, McInerney dealt with more Russian fighter jet incursions
(which he calls "bear penetrations") than anyone else in the world.
So McInerney knows how to tell
innocent from hostile incursions by foreign fighter jets, standard rules of engagement of foreign
fighter jets, how to read radar tracks, and the other things he would need to know to form an informed
opinion about the shootdown of a foreign jet.
Yesterday, McInerney told Fox News – much to the surprise of the reporter interviewing him
– that assuming the Turkish version of the flight path of the Russian jet is accurate, Russia
wasn't threatening Turkey, and that Turkey's shoot down of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned",
as the jet wasn't in Turkish air space long enough for anything other than a premeditated attack
to have brought it.
McInerney is right … especially given that a U.S. official
told
Reuters that the Russian jet was insideof Syria when it was shot down:
The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside
Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
... ... ...
International law expert Francis Boyle - Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois,
Champaign, who was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989
– said by email:
The Russian bombing of Syria is technically legal because they have the explicit permission
of the Syrian government, but of course Putin will ultimately act in accord with his interests,
not what is best for the Syrian people.
***
As the International Court of Justice ruled in the seminal Nicaragua case (1986), any use of
force even in alleged self-defense must also fulfill the basic customary international law requirements
of (1) necessity and (2) proportionality. Even accepting the government of Turkey's version of
events, it does not appear that there was any "necessity" for Turkey to destroy the Russian jet.
Washington's Blog asked Boyle whether this is analogous to the "use of force" by someone with
a gun who claims he was threatened by someone else. He answered affirmatively, explaining:
Necessity and Proportionality are each separate requirements for the
use of force in self-defense.
From another [International Court of Justice] case, the basic test
for "necessity" is that the necessity of self-defense must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice
of means and no moment for deliberation. Clearly, that was not the case here.
"... As the Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed "rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge, and flood Europe, since World War II. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS' cheap oil, and which involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol , continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it. ..."
"... Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer ..."
"... Depleted Uranium Contamination: A Crime against Humanity ..."
"... when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed, etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and... guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers. ..."
We concluded by asking "how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding
the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when
buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments,
and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as
long as it has?"
To be sure, the only party that actually did something to halt ISIS' oil infrastructure
was Russia, whose bombing raids of Islamic State oil routes may not only have contributed to the
fatal attack by Turkey of the Russian Su-24 (as the curtailment of ISIS' oil flows led to a big hit
in the funds collected by the biggest middleman in the region, Turkey, its president and his son,
Bilal not to mention Israel which may have been actively buying ISIS oil over the past year) but
prompted questions why the bombing campaign by the US-led alliance had been so woefully incapable
of hitting ISIS where it truly hurts: its funding.
This past week, someone finally came up with a "reason" why the Obama administration had been
so impotent at denting the Islamic State's well-greased oil machine. In an interview on
PBS' Charlie Rose on Tuesday, Rose pointed
out that before the terrorist attacks in Paris, the U.S. had not bombed ISIS-controlled oil tankers,
to which the former CIA deputy director Michael Morell responded that Barack Obama didn't order
the bombing of ISIS's oil transportation infrastructure until recently because he was concerned about
environmental damage.
Yes, he really said that:
We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't
want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.
In other words, one can blame such recent outbreaks of deadly terrorist activity as the Paris
bombings and the explosion of the Russian passenger airplane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Obama's
hard line stance to not pollute the atmosphere with the toxic aftermath of destroyed ISIS infrastructure.
Brilliant.
As the
Daily Caller adds, Morell also said the White House was concerned about destroying infrastructure
that could be used by the Syrian people. Such profound concern for a people which has been traumatized
for the past 5 years courtesy of a US-funded effort to destabilize the nation courtesy of US-armed
"rebels" whose only purpose has been the deposition of yet another elected president, and where
the emergence of the CIA-created Islamic State has led to the biggest wave of refugees to emerge,
and flood Europe, since World War II.
But back to Obama's alleged decision that not polluting the environment is more important
than halting the funding artery that keeps ISIS in business.
Morell continued "Prior to Paris, there seemed to be a judgment that look, we don't want to
destroy these oil tankers because that's infrastructure that's going to be necessary to support the
people when ISIS isn't there anymore, and it's going to create environmental damage. And we didn't
go after oil wells - actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn't want to do environmental
damage and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure, right."
Then we started asking questions, others joined in, and everything changed: "So now we're hitting
oil in trucks and maybe you get to the point where you say we also have to hit oil wells. So those
are the kind of tough decisions you have to make."
So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can't eradicate the
primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of
dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.
We are truly speechless at this idiocy.
Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated
by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal
profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of
ISIS' cheap oil, and which
involves such "highly respected" commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this
day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.
For those who can't believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not
some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.
Looney
Morell is the same spook who "edited" Susan Rice's Benghazi SNAFU. Why don't all these assholes
like Morell, Greenspan, Bernanke, just shut up, crawl under a rock, and hope they're never found?
;-)
Buckaroo Banzai
The media is in the tank for cunts like this, and most people just don't bother paying attention
anyway. If Charlie Rose asked tough questions, his career would have ended before it even began.
Instead he makes a wonderful living playing the kindly avuncular shill.
Ignatius
There is no lie these murderous cunts won't tell. I guess depleted uranium is not an environmental
concern? Fuck 'em. Fuck all of 'em.
Pladizow
----> Not OK to spill oil
----> OK to spill blood
JustObserving
2400 tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq and 1000 tons in Afghanistan.
Fallujah cancer rates worse than Hiroshima due to use of depleted uranium. Leukemia rates 38
times higher than normal https://vimeo.com/38175279
Depleted Uranium And The Iraq War's Legacy Of Cancer
"In a follow up study, in which Dr Busby was a co-author, hair, soil and water samples were
taken from Fallujah and tested for the presence of heavy metals. The researchers expected to find
depleted uranium in the environmental samples. It is well known that the US used depleted uranium
weapons in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war; and Iraqis, at least, are well aware of the increases
in cancers and infant mortality rates in the city of Basrah, which was heavily bombarded during
Desert Storm. However, what the researchers found was not depleted uranium, but man-made, slightly
enriched uranium."
"Whilst the results seem to qualitatively support the existence of serious mutation-related
health effects in Fallujah, owing to the structural problems associated with surveys of this kind,
care should be exercised in interpreting the findings quantitatively. "
"Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s)
causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted
uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current
study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah."
It's not necessarily a lie, but it is necessarily a straw man and red herring, which distracts
from a conversation of the forgone alternatives to achieve the (supposedly) desired ends. Charlie
cocksucker and his mindless followers apparently buy the implicit argument the only tools in the
almighty CIA's chest to combat ISIS's operations funding with oil revenues was "bombing Syria's
(relatively tiny) oil fields" and creating an environmental catastrophe somehow akin to Saddam
in Kuwait...
'Muricans are getting exactly the government the (collectively) deserve.
Lore
I think the psychopaths don't give a shit. Remember the scale of MONEY and CONTROL at stake.
If you want to disable an insubordinate regime for standing up to your plans for regional hegemony
and energy supply, you punish the host population by taking out key infrastructure. So for starters,
place the launch triggers for all the drone strikes and aircraft sorties in the hands of obedient
lackies who follow orders without giving a shit, assemble a list of strategic targets, and then
announce "Aha! ISIS happens to be standing directly in front of this strategically-important piece
of infrastructure" (bridge, refinery, storage tank, whatever), and then press the button. Proxy
war is simply the policy of blaming somebody else for your own rotten behaviour. If the Syrian
people are displaced, so much the better, because mass migration conveniently handicaps the economies
of nations in Europe that might get in the way of continued button-pushing.
It's fucking evil, from start to finish. There was a time when it was a compliment to be called
a Company Man, but nowadays it just means you're a pathological liar and a whore and a louse.
NoDebt
So they'll blow up wedding parties and whatever innocent civilians happen to be around their
"targets" but they won't dare touch an oil well.
That speaks volumes. Delusional is the wrong word. Makes it sound like it's not their fault
or something.
KesselRunin12Parsecs
"We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn't
want to do environmental damage"
So now explain 'SCORCHED EARTH POLICY' after you presumably rescued babies from incubators
in 1991 you POS mF'er.
Kirk2NCC1701
Actually, he's telling you everything he can and you need to know or figure out.
Y'all must be 'Mericans, cause you can't read between the lines or read the situation/context.
Allow me to translate for you:
1. He's under an NDA, and must keep his Oath of Secrecy.
2. If he gives you a blatantly BS answer, it is YOUR job to figure out that he (a) can't tell
you the truth and (b) that it's Code for "Yes we support them to the hilt, and use Middle-men
and Cutouts as SOP, but also we deny everything as SOP."
Normalcy Bias
He reminds me of his movie counterpart, the 'Robert Ritter, CIA Deputy Director' character
from Clear and Present Danger.
Evil, arrogant, smug, and devoid of any conscience...
Meanwhile:US and Turkey cease flights over Syria, as Russia deploys 7000 troops to Turkish
border with Armenia
Chris88
We didn't go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because
we didn't want to do environmental damage, and we didn't want to destroy that infrastructure.
..damage a perfectly good CIA creation.
Junerberno
After the attack by Boko Haram (Al Qaeda) on the shopping mall in Nairobi, the US moved to
seize a senior Al Qaeda operative living in a mansion in North Africa. We knew where he was all
along, but never went after him, until after the attack. He was "made" by the Saudis and we were
appeasing him while he was "doing good" (killing Shia) but when he stepped out of line we punished
him. It's certain we asked for permission before arresting him finally, of course.
Pausing, because it must sink in: Al Qaeda. Who attacked us 9-11. Our brownshirts.
So now we suddenly care about ISIL after they "step out of line" in Paris. They were our friends
when they were sawing the heads off Shia. But they stepped out of line so we used a stick on their
hands.
The US knows where all of ISIL are at all times. ISIL has been permitted to slaughter everyone
in its path because they are focused on killing Shia, and Israel supports a holocaust against
Shia muslims.
earleflorida
when 'baby`bush' raided iraq in 2003, he and his filthy scum cronies destroyed [bombed,
etc.] every last bit of iraqis antiquities, libraries, religious monuments, museums etel, and...
guarded with total authority the Ministry of Energy, oil infrastructure, and Iraq's Central bank
with a small army of specialized forces ranging from 12k-18k soldiers.
But they can bomb the fuck out of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. setting those countries back to the
stone age, displacing and killing millions, destroying historical buildings, build nuke plants
on fault lines, gmo food, flouride poison in our water, spraying shit in the skies etc....but
NOOOO!!, we cant bomboil oil infrastructures that are helping arm the terrorists...what a fucking
liar piece of shit..
marcusfenix
this is some epic and absurd bullfuckingshit to the highest degree right here.
if they had no plans to hit IS in the one way it would really hurt them, in the only way it
would make any difference then it begs the question....
why bother bombing them at all?
these people are not stupid, they know exactly how war works, how to wage it properly and how
to defeat an enemy. and yet they try and sell the idiotic idea that they did not go after the
most valuable and vulnerable of IS assets out of environmental concerns?
really?
and this is exactly why the "coalition" warned the Syrian air force against carrying out missions
in these areas, outright threatened them in fact. to provide air cover and a safe route for IS
oil to find it's way into Turkey and Iraq. and it worked, it was smooth sailing and billions all
around right up until Moscow stepped in and literally started blowing up the program.
the "save the environment" excuse doesn't play on any level and WFT good does it do the Syria
people for this infrastructure to exist so long as IS controls it, they sure as shit are not benefiting
from it. in fact it only hurts them more because the longer IS can make billions off the sale
of this oil the longer this war will drag on.
the longer the war drags on the more innocent Syrian's die so it would in fact be better for
the common people of Syria for this oil pipeline to be destroyed and ISIS starved to death. then
afterwords the Syrians can go ahead and start rebuilding the infrastructure. but there won't be
an afterwords so long as IS can make that money and fund there whole drug soaked, murderous operation.
and I wonder what the citizens of Paris think about the environmental concerns vs wiping out
the islamic states revenue stream?
all this sudden care and concern flowing from DC about civilians, about oil smugglers, civilian
infrastructure and mother earth makes me want to vomit.
because it's all just a never ending stream of bullshit and lies.
sometimes, in the darkest corners of my mind, I do sincerely wonder weather nuclear war might
just the only thing that will bring this lunacy to an end. not saying i want it to happen or that
i want to live through it but it might just be the only way for somebody, somewhere in the world
to get a fresh start free of this insane asylum we all live in.
Standard neocon drivel... Standard Republican hawk mentality (he is a junior senator from
Arkansas). The only interesting detail is that this guy was both in 1977.
Notable quotes:
"... In Syria, Putin professes that he wants to fight ISIS, but this is mere posturing. Even with new Russian strikes on ISIS-controlled areas in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks and the downing of the Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, Russian forces have trained the large majority of its bombs on coalition-backed opposition fighters. Putin has also explicitly stated that he wants to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which directly contrasts with stated U.S. policy. Turkey, a NATO ally, has suffered repeated violations of its airspace as Russia pursues its offensive against Syrian opposition forces. ..."
"... Putin is very consciously challenging the United States and the U.S.-led international order, and is now waging a proxy war against it. It is well past time for the West to recognize his challenge, rise up to it, and move to win the proxy war ..."
he attacks by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Paris have forced a major rethinking of U.S.
strategy in the Syrian conflict. A part of that rethinking must be U.S. President Barack Obama's
unwise decision to treat Russia as a legitimate partner in negotiations over Syria's future.
At
the G-20 meeting in Turkey this week, Russia quickly offered itself as a key partner in the fight
against ISIS and the stabilization of Syria, and Obama again expressed his willingness to entertain
that notion.
This is a grave mistake. Rather than being a constructive partner, President Vladimir Putin's
Russia has been engaged in a proxy war against the United States in Syria, despite Obama's protestations
to the contrary. And when an enemy wages war against the United States, it does not get to choose
whether it is at war; its only choice is to win or lose. Right now, the United States is losing the
proxy war in Syria-and a wider competition for regional influence-against Russia. And it will continue
to do so without a dramatic shift in policy to confront Russian aggression.
A PROXY WAR AND THE WIDER STRUGGLE
In Syria, Putin professes that he wants to fight ISIS, but this is mere posturing. Even with new
Russian strikes on ISIS-controlled areas in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks and the
downing of the Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula, Russian forces have trained the large majority
of its bombs on coalition-backed opposition fighters. Putin has also explicitly stated that he wants
to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which directly contrasts with stated U.S. policy.
Turkey, a NATO ally, has suffered repeated violations of its airspace as Russia pursues its offensive
against Syrian opposition forces.
Russia is engaged in a shooting war against the United States' clients to undermine U.S. policy.
If that's not a proxy war, what is?
But this proxy war is only the most recent and dramatic front in a wider competition between the
United States and Russia. Ukrainians overthrew former President Viktor Yushchenko, who was aligned
with Putin, in 2013 and sought to reorient their country toward the West. In short order, Russia
invaded Crimea-which it still illegally occupies-and fomented the ongoing civil war in the Donbass.
Likewise, Russia illegally occupies the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions in Georgia, one of the
most pro-Western countries in Eastern Europe. In fact, Russia has continued to seize more Georgian
territory in recent months.
Russia also continues a campaign of provocations against NATO allies in northern and Eastern Europe,
threatening their air and naval boundaries and putting civil aviation at risk. Meanwhile, Central
and Eastern European countries-who suffered under Soviet domination-report that Russian propaganda
in traditional and social media has become pervasive.
Russia has become so emboldened that it does not even demur from direct provocations against the
United States. Last month, Russian ships and submarines operated near U.S. undersea data cables and
Russian bombers buzzed the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, forcing it to scramble for fighters.
And last week, it was revealed by Russian media-perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not-that the Russian
military is developing an unmanned underwater vehicle capable of carrying nuclear payloads that is
invulnerable to interception. A nuclear attack on U.S. port cities is the only reasonable rationale
for such a weapon.
... ... ...
Finally, assertive diplomacy must be a part of U.S. policy toward Russia. The Department of
State should create a new "country-at-risk" designation that would entitle nations under threat
from external destabilization to a basket of U.S. and NATO assistance programs, including the
intelligence assistance described above. This basket of assistance could also include programs
aimed at helping these nations diversify their industrial bases and their sources of energy to be
less dependent on trade with Russia. The overall effect of the new designation would signal
increased commitment from the United States, and indicate to Putin that any escalation by Russia
would automatically invite greater Western engagement.
The United States should also energize its public diplomacy and information strategies. It could
take the lead in funding translation services to make Western media available in Russia. The
United States needn't create content. Unlike in Russia, robust debate and diverse viewpoints
already exist in U.S. media. The United States simply needs to ensure that this content is
disseminated widely in Russia and Eastern Europe to provide a counter-narrative to
Russian-controlled media and an example to the Russian people of what free media looks like.
... ... ...
Putin is very consciously challenging the United States and the U.S.-led international
order, and is now waging a proxy war against it. It is well past time for the West to recognize
his challenge, rise up to it, and move to win the proxy war. Otherwise, Washington may find
itself in a genuine war against a nuclear peer
In considering the terrifying but also sadly predictable news of a Russian fighter jet being
downed by two Turkish fighters, let's start with one almost certain assumption - an assumption
that no doubt is also being made by the Russian government: Turkey's action, using US-supplied
F-16 planes, was taken with the full knowledge and advance support of the US. In fact, given
Turkey's vassal status as a member of US-dominated NATO, it could well be that Ankara was put up
to this act of brinksmanship by the US.
... ... ...
Russia - knowing that this is really not about Turkey, but about push-back by the US against
growing Russian power and influence, both globally and in the Middle East region - could also
choose to respond in a venue where it has more of an advantage, for example in Ukraine, where it
could amp up its support for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps by downing a
Ukrainian military plane, or more broadly, providing air cover to protect those regions. Russia
could also, less directly, provide aid to Kurdish rebels in both Syria and in Turkey itself who
are fighting against Turkish forces.
... ... ...
It is all terribly dangerous and it is hard to predict where things will lead. One thing seems
certain, though. This outrageous shootdown of a Russian plane that was in no way posing a threat
to Turkey or Turkish forces, will not end here, because Russia and President Putin cannot allow
Turkey and NATO to so blatantly act against Russia and its pilots and go unpunished, particularly
as it is Russia that is acting legally in Syria, while the US, Turkey and other nations backing
rebel forces there are in all acting blatant violation of international law.
Unless saner heads start prevailing in Washington, this could all quickly spiral into the kind of
situation in 1914, where a lot of ill-conceived treaties led to a minor incident in the Balkans
turning inexorably into World War I.
Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and
is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).
"... While Erdogan is indeed a nasty piece of work, it does seem like someone IS trying to topple him and destablize Turkey. As a vassal, he doesnt quite know his place and had actually contemplate joining the East as shown by Blue Stream and negotiations to purchase Chinese Red Flag missile system. ..."
"... Quite possilbly being encoraged to shoot down the Russian fighter and led to believe NATO would back him up. Once relationship with Russia is being torn and completely isolated in teh world by having his relationship with ISIS exposed, Turkey is ready for destablisation and eventual carved-up. Its no wonder the western press has only good things to say about the Kurds. ..."
"... Reminds me of Iraq/Kuwait. ..."
"... The only regional power counter to Iran on the ground is Turkey, so now you will see that place put through the wringer as well. Population is around 75 million, so its heavy density, old culture, access to NATO and western security interests and all the other trappings compel Turkey to fill the vacuum to be created in Syria. ..."
"... The arrival of the Russians in Syria seems to have awoken NATO. NATO has started its response to Russia and will penalize it for the support for the Assad government. ..."
"... We know that Turknam commander Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey's Elazig province. He is a member of the Grey Wolves. ..."
"... We know that use of the BGM-71 TOW missiles – which cost $50,000 a piece – is up over 850% in October with the American-made weapons responsible for the destruction of scores of Syrian army tanks. These are being passed through Turkey. ..."
"... They dont share our values Maybe not your values but certainly Washingtons values ..."
"... the bigger question is why is there even a NATO at all? The big bad Soviet Union Warsaw Pact are long gone. Truth is NATO now is the Atlanticists + some puppet regimes in eastern Europe/Turkey. ..."
"... It is obvious the west is trying to stretch Russia via Ukraine and Syria and now Turkey; the further you stretch an any, the more difficult it is to focus on the bigger picture. China better step up to the Russian plate and soon if anyone expects to reign in the NATO terrorists. ..."
"... Seems like everything in the Middle East is going tribal, sectarian, and vigilante. Bad day for established government and power for the people in a general sense ..."
And I have friends--staunch "progressives"--who think reading FT and The Economist (both Rothschild
organs) somehow keeps one realistically abreast of the news.
Killdo
you are right - FT is pathetic - I stopped reading it about 6 months ago after many years.
Even their best books of they year section is not that good any more.
I've noticed the Guardian is pretty anti-Russian (but comments are almost like ZH)
fleur de lis
Ergodan is giving us a real time profile of the typical violent psychopath dragging entire
nations into a ditch. It is rare that they spin out of control in public so badly. The Matrix
must be furious. He wrecked their little scheme and gave the Russians the upper hand.
Psychopaths are everywhere at the helms of power, destroying entire social structures, looting
resources, triggering wars and leaving a trail of bloodshed to keep the NWO in control.
But these things must be done quietly. The target populations must not be alerted that they
are being terrorized and robbed. They might catch on and revolt.
That is why NATO is so angry with him -- they don't care about the Russian jet or the murders
of the pilot and the marine. It's just that Ergodan made such an absolute mess of it. Maybe it
was being planned along those lines anyway but he got out in front and did things his way, thus
overplaying his hand and NATO's.
By becoming the biggest loose cannon on Earth he has attracted the negative attention of his
handlers. He will be reprimanded in no uncertain terms.
Fractal Parasite
Well, the Erdogan regime has scored so many own goals lately, it's hard not to imagine that
he is being purposefully chucked under the bus.
rwe2late
A familiar road travelled often. Erdogan strives to retain power by a crackdown on domestic
dissent coupled with expansionist war abroad.
Major US news media champion for Turk-run "safe zone" inside Syria. Turk troops as well as
operatives have already invaded Syria.
Turk media has proclaimed: "Aleppo to become the 82nd province of Turkey"
Turkey invented the DEEP STATE. Everything is fucked and our generation will be officially
be viewed as fucking USELESS, as it was on our watch that tyranny and plutocracy made a come back.
How many good men and women around the world have died standing up to political bullying and the
plebs have stood by and did nothing?
Cindy6
While Erdogan is indeed a nasty piece of work, it does seem like someone IS trying to topple
him and destablize Turkey. As a vassal, he doesn't quite know his place and had actually contemplate
joining the East as shown by Blue Stream and negotiations to purchase Chinese Red Flag missile
system.
Quite possilbly being encoraged to shoot down the Russian fighter and led to believe NATO
would back him up. Once relationship with Russia is being torn and completely isolated in teh
world by having his relationship with ISIS exposed, Turkey is ready for destablisation and eventual
carved-up. It's no wonder the western press has only good things to say about the Kurds.
Reminds me of Iraq/Kuwait.
If he has any brain cell left, he should immediately patch up relationship with Russia and
China. Else he's toast and Eurasia having another failed state.
"Pretence" that the aircraft "violated" Turkish airspace for a few seconds (this is the
same Turkey that regards 2000 violations of Greek airspace to be perfectly OK;
Support of oil smuggling – let's be honest, oil THEFT, by a known terrorist group (and
we know who is a direct beneficiary from this trade – "Keep it in the Family".)
This being an Aussie MSM publication, notice that none of the above points have been mentioned
even in passing. Got to keep feeding the masses "Government Approved" information, lest that might
have ideas of their own . . . .
Linoleum Blownapart
In my mind, there's a difference between an ongoing feud with tension and jabs, vs. an all-out
fist fight to the death.
Events so far have been isolated enough that diplomats can still sit around the table and talk.
Personally, I'm not calling WW3 until U.S. and Russia have severed diplomatic relations, which
they haven't at all:
The only regional power counter to Iran on the ground is Turkey, so now you will see that
place put through the wringer as well. Population is around 75 million, so its heavy density,
old culture, access to NATO and western security interests and all the other trappings compel
Turkey to fill the vacuum to be created in Syria.
That's a tall order to fill, but one easily paid for using the same model in Saudi and
Egypt over the decades.
Good time to be in the black markets in Turkey witness all the refugees in the pipeline to
Berlin and Washington.
Not sure of what kind of Alevi-Sufi capacity Quds has in the east, but given how the Sons of
Noah operate in Chechnya who knows what the future holds.
atthelake
www.kingworldnews.com has some good tapes, including Paul Craig Roberts on Russia and Turkey.
SgtShaftoe
Agreed, I just got done listening to the PCR piece about an hour ago. It was very good analysis.
Ms No
People will start disappearing in mass and they will find them 15 years down the road in mass
graves. This is a pattern which is constant throughout history any time there is a military dicatorship
or tyranny of whatever variety... and yes they will likely be tortured. This is right out of the
CIAs South America playbook. Same MO every time with only slight variations.
Things are moving quickly, what's next is what's important. Each criminal act inside a NATO
country is used by NATO to its advantage in the escalation of war in Syria. With emphasis on Turkey
where its most recent criminal activities appear premeditated.NATO is rushing
to war in Syria after the recent criminal act in Paris. The arrival of the Russians in Syria
seems to have awoken NATO. NATO has started its response to Russia and will penalize it for the
support for the Assad government.
The criminal act in Turkey, the assassination of a "Prominent Kurdish Lawyer" is just another
move that will be used to justify more war. The slippery slope of war is getting steep. I will
expect Turkish ground troops to arrive in Syria soon to create a 'buffer zone' and that slice
of dirt will be the ground where the Turks will put the Kurds backs to the wall again. What's
next is what is important. War Pigs!
flapdoodle
I suspect the problem for Turkey invading Syria is that Putin told Erdogan that anything that
crosses into Syrian territory near Latakia will have the shit bombed out of it.
The US and NATO is trying desperatly to put in ground troops (hence the Paris false flag to
try to get the French (NATO) in, but I still think Turkey (also NATO) is reluctant to do this
openly), and they may succeed in getting troops into Eastern Syria, but Putin, with SAA, Quds,
and Hezbullah, has the advantage in Western Syria and will make a move there very difficult for
NATO. If Western Syria was a crucial part of the Zionazi gameplan, they better come up with something
else quick. Putin has reached the high ground first.
The fact that Turkey has grounded their flights into Syria is telling. They don't know what
the fuck to do.
Its quite possible that Putin maneuvered the Turks into downing the Su-24. or at least set
up the environment propitious to its occurring - unfortunately for Turkey.
Putin really knows his judo and used his opponents own move against him. The S-400 timing was
just right, and the downing gave Russians the perfect excuse to smash the hell out of the Turkey/Syria
border.
Whatever happened to Turkey's vaunted 5mi exclusion zone at the border??? Its gone, baby, gone...
GreatUncle
Think most people know what Erdogan is about ...
Cynically the US pipes up condemming the killing but support Erdogan. US foreign policy is
a fucking shambles ain't that the truth. So once again Turkey shows it should never be allowed
to join the EU because it does not support human rights.
2 pillars of the EU are already crumbling, the euro and the schengen agreement, then allowing
Turkey into the EU club you just dismantled a 3rd pillar and the EHCR.
So which supporting pillar of the EU crumbles next then ? Or alternatively you might want to
consider the Lisbon Treaty a worthless piece of paper.
debtor of last ...
So the gas pipeline from Quatar stops at the Syrian-Turkish border. For now.
Dutch Geert Wilders (our Marine le Pen) called Erdogan a madman, about 3 years back. But he's
raciss of course....
green dragon
We know that Turknam commander Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade
turned out to be the son of a mayor of a Keban municipality in Turkey's Elazig province. He is
a member of the Grey Wolves.
We know that use of the BGM-71 TOW missiles – which cost $50,000 a piece – is up over 850%
in October with the American-made weapons responsible for the destruction of scores of Syrian
army tanks. These are being passed through Turkey.
We know that Turkey has focused their bombing efforts on Kurdish sites.
We know that so called nice Terrorists supported by Turkey seized Kurds from buses travelling
from the town of Afrin to the city of Aleppo.
We know that Erdogan's government is planned to place reporters who exposed weapons in Aid
shipments from Turkey in jail.
We know much but do nothing!
I-am-not-one-of-them
they won't denounce their own foreign policy, they want that policy to succeed
you seem to think criminals should have a concience or morals
smacker
Westerners should boycott all travel and tourism to Turkey. Too much civil unrest, cold blooded
street assassinations, riots, police violence etc. "Turkey has become a terrorist country and
is unsafe"
Dark Daze
Why are the Turks in NATO? They don't deserve to be. They don't share our values, our traditions,
our religion or our style of government. They are nothing more than evil, back stabbing, slimey
bags of Sunni shit, and always have been. And now that Erdogan is becoming a dictator things are
only going to get worse. I would not support my government sending one soldier, one plane or one
ship to defend those animals. Let the Russians have at them I say.
Omen IV -> Dark Daze
"They don't share our values" Maybe not your values but certainly Washington's values
ross81 -> Dark Daze
the bigger question is why is there even a NATO at all? The "big bad" Soviet Union & Warsaw
Pact are long gone. Truth is NATO now is the Atlanticists + some puppet regimes in eastern Europe/Turkey.
They want the entire Middle East and wont tolerate a Russian or BRICS influence there at all.
Good to see though that the Shiite Bloc are tired of all this fucking chaos & mayhem and are joining
the Russian side.
Joe Plane
The Warsaw pact was created after NATO and as a counter act.
Don't know how many people know this but in 1954 the USSR, Belorussia and Ukraine (the latter
two being seperate members of the UN) applied for membership in NATO. And were rejected.
Crocodile
It is obvious the west is trying to stretch Russia via Ukraine and Syria and now Turkey;
the further you stretch an any, the more difficult it is to focus on the bigger picture. China
better step up to the Russian plate and soon if anyone expects to reign in the NATO terrorists.
... ... ...
farflungstar
Kurdistan is being groomed to be israel's latest manufactured ally in the region - they've
been stroking the Kurds for quite some time.
I wonder just how willing Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey (nations with significant Kurdish pops.)
are going to be to cede territory to what will be an israeli ally - a little? not too much? not
at all?
Eventually they may have no choice.
nah
Seems like everything in the Middle East is going tribal, sectarian, and vigilante. Bad
day for established government and power for the people in a general sense
"... In reality, this perception is misleading; not that Kerry is a warmonger on the level of George W. Bush's top staff, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. The two were the very antithesis of any rational foreign policy such that even the elder George H. W. Bush described them with demeaning terminology , according to his biographer, quoted in the New York Times . Cheney was an "Iron-ass", who "had his own empire … and marched to his own drummer," H.W. Bush said, while calling Rumsfeld "an arrogant fellow" who lacked empathy. Yet, considering that the elder Bush was rarely a peacemaker himself, one is left to ponder if the US foreign policy ailment is centered on failure to elect proper representatives and to enlist anyone other than psychopaths? ..."
"... comparing the conduct of the last three administrations, that of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, one would find that striking similarities are abundant. In principle, all three administrations' foreign policy agendas were predicated on strong militaries and military interventions, although they applied soft power differently. ..."
"... In essence, Obama carried on with much of what W. Bush had started in the Middle East, although he supplanted his country's less active role in Iraq with new interventions in Libya and Syria. In fact, his Iraq policies were guided by Bush's final act in that shattered country, where he ordered a surge in troops to pacify the resistance, thus paving the way for an eventual withdrawal. Of course, none of that plotting worked in their favor, with the rise of ISIS among others, but that is for another discussion. ..."
"... In other words, US foreign policy continues unabated, often guided by the preponderant norm that "might makes right", and by ill-advised personal ambitions and ideological illusions like those championed by neo-conservatives during W. Bush's era. ..."
"... The folly of W. Bush, Cheney and company is that they assumed that the Pentagon's over $1.5 billion-a-day budget was enough to acquire the US the needed leverage to control every aspect of global affairs, including a burgeoning share of world economy. ..."
"... The Russian military campaign in Syria, which was halfheartedly welcomed by the US. has signaled a historic shift in the Middle East. Even if Russia fails to turn its war into a major shift of political and economic clout, the mere fact that other contenders are now throwing their proverbial hats into the Middle East ring, is simply unprecedented since the British-French-Israeli Tripartite Aggression on Egypt in 1956. ..."
"... It will take years before a new power paradigm fully emerges, during which time US clients are likely to seek the protection of more dependable powers. In fact, the shopping for a new power is already under way, which also means that new alliances will be formed while others fold. ..."
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is often perceived as one of the "good ones" – the less hawkish
of top American officials, who does not simply promote and defend his country's military adventurism
but reaches out to others, beyond polarizing rhetoric.
His unremitting efforts culminated partly in the Iran nuclear framework agreement in April,
followed by a final deal, a few months later. Now, he is reportedly hard at work again to find
some sort of consensus on a way out of the Syria war, a multi-party conflict that has killed over
300,000 people. His admirers see him as the diplomatic executor of a malleable and friendly US foreign
policy agenda under President Obama.
In reality, this perception is misleading; not that Kerry is a warmonger on the level of George
W. Bush's top staff, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
The two were the very antithesis of any rational foreign policy such that even the elder George H.
W. Bush
described them with demeaning terminology, according to his biographer, quoted in the New
York Times. Cheney was an "Iron-ass", who "had his own empire … and marched to his own
drummer," H.W. Bush said, while calling Rumsfeld "an arrogant fellow" who lacked empathy. Yet, considering
that the elder Bush was rarely a peacemaker himself, one is left to ponder if the US foreign policy
ailment is centered on failure to elect proper representatives and to enlist anyone other than psychopaths?
If one is to fairly examine US foreign policies in the Middle East, for example, comparing
the conduct of the last three administrations, that of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama,
one would find that striking similarities are abundant. In principle, all three administrations'
foreign policy agendas were predicated on strong militaries and military interventions, although
they applied soft power differently.
In essence,
Obama carried on with much of what W. Bush had started in the Middle East, although he supplanted
his country's less active role in Iraq with new interventions in Libya and Syria. In fact, his Iraq
policies were guided by Bush's final act in that shattered country, where he ordered a surge in troops
to pacify the resistance, thus paving the way for an eventual withdrawal. Of course, none of that
plotting worked in their favor, with the rise of ISIS among others, but that is for another discussion.
Obama has even gone a step further when
he recently decided to keep thousands of US troops in Afghanistan well into 2017, thus breaking
US commitment to withdraw next year. 2017 is Obama's last year in office, and the decision is partly
motivated by his administration's concern that future turmoil in that country could cost his Democratic
Party heavily in the upcoming presidential elections.
In other words, US foreign policy continues unabated, often guided by the preponderant norm
that "might makes right", and by ill-advised personal ambitions and ideological illusions like those
championed by neo-conservatives during W. Bush's era.
Nevertheless, much has changed as well, simply because American ambitions to police the world,
politics and the excess of $600 billion a year US defense budget are not the only variables that
control events in the Middle East and everywhere else. There are other undercurrents that cannot
be wished away, and they too can dictate US foreign policy outlooks and behavior.
Indeed, an
American decline has been noted for many years, and Middle Eastern nations have been more aware
of this decline than others. One could even argue that the W. Bush administration's rush for war
in Iraq in 2003 in an attempt at controlling the region's resources, was a belated effort at staving
off that unmistakable decay – whether in US ability to regulate rising global contenders or in its
overall share of global economy.
The folly of W. Bush, Cheney and company is that they assumed that the Pentagon's over $1.5
billion-a-day budget was enough to acquire the US the needed leverage to control every aspect of
global affairs, including a burgeoning share of world economy. That misconception carries on
to this day, where military spending is
already accounting for about 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending, itself nearly
a third of the country's overall budget.
However, those who are blaming Obama for failing to leverage US military strength for political
currency refuse to accept that Obama's behavior hardly reflects a lack of appetite for war, but a
pragmatic response to a situation that has largely spun out of US control.
The so-called "Arab Spring", for example, was a major defining factor in the changes of US fortunes.
And it all came at a particularly interesting time.
First, the Iraq war has destroyed whatever little credibility the US had in the region, a sentiment
that also reverberated around the world.
Second, it was becoming clear that the US foreign policy in Central and South America – an obstinate
continuation of the
Monroe Doctrine of
1823, which laid the groundwork for US domination of that region – has also been challenged by
more assertive leaders, armed with democratic initiatives, not military coups.
Third,
China's more forceful politics, at least around its immediate regional surroundings, signaled
that the US traditional hegemony over most of East and South East Asia are also facing fierce competition.
Not only many Asian and other countries have flocked to China, lured by its constantly growing
and seemingly more solid economic performance, if compared to the US, but others are also
flocking to Russia, which is filling a political and, as of late, military vacuum left open.
The Russian military campaign in Syria,
which was halfheartedly welcomed by the US. has signaled a historic shift in the Middle East.
Even if Russia fails to turn its war into a major shift of political and economic clout, the mere
fact that other contenders are now throwing their proverbial hats into the Middle East ring, is simply
unprecedented since the British-French-Israeli Tripartite Aggression on Egypt in 1956.
The region's historians must fully understand the repercussions of all of these factors, and that
simply analyzing
the US decline based on the performance of individuals – Condoleezza Rice's hawkishness vs. John
Kerry's supposed sane diplomacy – is a trivial approach to understanding current shifts in global
powers.
It will take years before a new power paradigm fully emerges, during which time US clients
are likely to seek the protection of more dependable powers. In fact, the shopping for a new power
is already under way, which also means that
new alliances will be formed while others fold.
For now, the Middle East will continue to pass through this incredibly difficult and violent transition,
for which the US is partly responsible.
Turkey (AP) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday voiced regret over Turkey's
downing of a Russian warplane, saying his country was "truly saddened" by the incident and wished
it hadn't occurred.
It was the first expression of regret by the strongman leader since Tuesday's incident in
which Turkish F-16 jets shot down the Russian jet on grounds that it had violated Turkey's
airspace despite repeated warnings to change course. It was the first time in half a century that
a NATO member shot down a Russian plane and drew a harsh response from Moscow.
"We are truly saddened by this incident," Erdogan said. "We wish it hadn't happened as such,
but unfortunately such a thing has happened. I hope that something like this doesn't occur
again."
Addressing supporters in the western city of Balikesir, Erdogan said neither country should
allow the incident to escalate and take a destructive form that would lead to "saddening
consequences."
He renewed a call for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a climate
conference in Paris next week, saying it would be an opportunity to overcome tensions.
"... "All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company's nerves. They're importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well. ..."
"... "First and foremost, the Turks help the militants sell stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil for $20 a barrel, which is half the market price. ..."
"... According to a European official at an international oil company who met with al-Araby in a Gulf capital, Israel refines the oil only once or twice because it does not have advanced refineries. It exports the oil to Mediterranean countries - where the oil gains a semi-legitimate status - for $30 to $35 a barrel. ..."
"... The oil is sold within a day or two to a number of private companies, while the majority goes to an Italian refinery owned by one of the largest shareholders in an Italian football club [name removed] where the oil is refined and used locally, added the European oil official. ..."
"... Israel has in one way or another become the main marketer of IS oil. Without them, most IS-produced oil would have remained going between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Even the three companies would not receive the oil if they did not have a buyer in Israel, said the industry official. ..."
One person who definitely thinks the Erdogans are trafficking in ISIS oil is Syrian Information Minister
Omran al-Zoubi who said the following on Friday:
"All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip]
Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against
the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on
Erdogan and his company's nerves. They're importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts
as well."
And then there's Iraq's former National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie who posted the following
to his Facebook page on Saturday:
"First and foremost, the Turks help the militants sell stolen Iraqi and Syrian
oil for $20 a barrel, which is half the market price."
Meanwhile, the US is preparing for an all-out ISIS oil propaganda war. As
WSJ reported on Wednesday, "the Treasury [has] accused a Syrian-born businessman, George Haswani,
who his a dual Syrian-Russian citizen, of using his firm, HESCO Engineering and Construction Co.,
for facilitating oil trades between the Assad regime and Islamic State." Why Assad would buy oil
from a group that uses the cash at its disposal to wage war against Damascus is an open question
especially when one considers that Assad's closest allies (Russia and Iran) are major oil producers.
Of course between all the shady middlemen and double dealing, there's really no telling.
Ultimately we'll probably never know the whole story, but what we do know (and again, most of
the evidence is either circumstantial, anecdotal, of largely qualitative) seems to suggest that in
addition to providing guns and money to the FSA and al-Nusra, Turkey may well be responsible for
facilitating Islamic State's $400+ million per year oil enterprise. And as for end customers, consider
the following bit from Al-Araby al-Jadeed:
According to a European official at an international oil company who met with al-Araby
in a Gulf capital, Israel refines the oil only "once or twice" because it does not have advanced
refineries. It exports the oil to Mediterranean countries - where the oil "gains a semi-legitimate
status" - for $30 to $35 a barrel.
"The oil is sold within a day or two to a number of private companies, while the majority
goes to an Italian refinery owned by one of the largest shareholders in an Italian football club
[name removed] where the oil is refined and used locally," added the European oil official.
"Israel has in one way or another become the main marketer of IS oil. Without them,
most IS-produced oil would have remained going between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Even the three
companies would not receive the oil if they did not have a buyer in Israel," said the
industry official.
Finally, you'll note that this is all an effort to answer what we called "the most important question
about ISIS that no one is asking" - namely, "who are the middlemen?" As we noted more than a week
ago, "we do know who they may be: the same names that were quite prominent in the market in September
when Glencore had its first, and certainly not last, near death experience: the Glencores, the Vitols,
the Trafiguras, the Nobels, the Mercurias of the world." Consider that, and consider what Reuters
says about the trade in illicit KRG oil: "Market sources have said several trading houses
including Trafigura and Vitol have dealt with Kurdish oil. Both Trafigura and Vitol declined to comment
on their role in oil sales."
Similarly, FT notes that "both Vitol and Trafigura had paid the KRG in advance for the oil, under
so-called 'pre-pay' deals, helping Erbil to bridge its budget gaps."
Indeed, when Kurdistan went looking for an advisor to assist in the effort to circumvent Baghdad,
the KRG chose "Murtaza Lakhani, who worked for Glencore in Iraq in the 2000s, to assist finding ships."
"He knew exactly who would and who wouldn't deal with us. He opened the doors to us and
identified willing shipping companies to work with us," Ashti Hawrami (quoted above) said.
Indeed. And given everything said above about the commingling of illegal KRG crude and illicit
ISIS oil shipments, it's probably a foregone conclusion that these same firms are assisting in transport
arrangements for Islamic State
Right after 9/11, the Israelis swept in and starting building links with the Kurds.
Google it. They are using the Kurds as a destabilizer and as a source for oil. Ashkelon and Haifa
moving oil to europe is their grand dream.
BuddyEffed
If there has been ship to ship transfers I bet someone, and maybe several recon capable
countries have spy photos. That could be part of the over the top game here. Let's bargain or we
will release photos.
I'm guessing the photos of the ship to ship transfers won't be released at this time.
jefferson32
Once again Meyssan's analysis proves extremely accurate. In July 2014, he writes:
On June 20, Israel bought the oil that the local Kurdish government had stolen in Kirkuk despite
the international opinion voiced by the Iraqi federal government. The transit of the oil had been
facilitated by the ISIL which controls the pipeline and Turkey which allowed the goods to be
loaded onto a tanker at the port of Ceyhan.
To understand how Turkey can, on one hand, cooperate with the Kurds in northern Irak - and
enable their oil commerce - and, on the other hand, be fighting Kurds in Syria (and Turkey
itself), it is important to realize these two populations, although both ethnically kurdish, have
little in common.
For starters, they don't speak the same language, and killed each other throughout the Cold War.
Nowadays, the Iraki Kurds are pro-West and lead by Barzani (admitedly a Mossad agent put in place
by the Americans and British). The Syrian Kurds are aligned with Iran and Russia.
Thierry Meyssan's exposé is much better than mine:
Half of all Turks live under the poverty line. A quarter of those live underneath the
starvation line = eat from dumpsters. Erdogan and his crime family live in a three-quarters of a
billion dollar palace.
The Kurds have it worse, from Be Very Worried About Barzani Family Power Struggle
"...Masud Barzani is president and lives in a palace complex in a resort inherited from
Saddam Hussein. His nephew, Nechirvan Barzani, is prime minister. His uncle, Hoshyar Zebari,
was Iraq's foreign minister and is now finance minister. Masud's eldest son, Masrour Barzani,
leads the intelligence service; and his second son Mansour is a general, as is Masud's brother
Wajy. Barzani's nephew Sirwan owns the regional cell phone company which, while purchased with
public money, remains a private holding. Barzani's sons are frequently in Washington D.C. They
have their wives give birth in Sibley Hospital in order to ensure the next generation has
American citizenship, and Masrour Barzani acquired an $11 million mansion in McLean, Virginia.
Hanging out in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, some of Masoud Barzani's daughters-in-law have,
according to Kurdish circles, been known to introduce themselves as "Princesses of Kurdistan"
as they visit high-end shops accompanied by their own rather unnecessary (while in the United
States) security details..."
Kurds hate Barzani - he's in power because Israel and the U.S. back him. Time to strip the
Barzani babies of their U.S. citizenship and bar their entire clan from ever setting foot on U.S.
soil for the rest of their lives.
Everything the U.S. touches turns to shit. Every country we have anything to do with is ruled by
psychopathic, money-grubbing gangsters. Every country we "freedomize and liberate" ends up
knee-deep in the blood of their own citizens while the wars have turned out to be neocon
chickenhawks grudge against a leader they don't like.
When Syria and Iraq have been sufficiently destroyed, U.S. and U.K. oil companies will own
the oil and gas production destined for the EU or Israel. The U.S. will continue to turn a blind
eye to the tin-pot dictators they have empowered and made profanely rich while their 'little
people' eat out of garbage cans. If those peons rise up to kick the dictator's asses (Erdogan,
Barzani, and whoever is in charge if the Iraqi hell-hole of death), then we will be there with
weapons, armor, aircraft and troops to kill those dumpster-diving terrorists.
If we don't like the Saddam Husseins or Bashar al-Assads of the world, WHY THE FUCK DO WE KEEP
MAKING MORE OF THEM?
Paveway IV
The Tylers do a good job of showing the trail of breadcrumbs in these oil operations. If you
need a PowerPoint deck and streaming video of Israeli brokers negotiating legally-questionable
and terrorist-supporting stolen oil purchases and scans of bill-of-sales from ISIS from Erdogan's
son, then you're probably on the wrong site.
There are plenty of accounts of Israel buying Kurdish oil directly, or acting as a middleman for
EU sales. Any Israeli brokers can legally claim ignorance of the source of the oil, but everyone
involved knows exactly where some it comes from and why it's so cheap. The legality of ANY
Kurdish oil sales are still in legal limbo - the U.S. courts won't permit its import. The fact
that a substantial quantitiy of Kurdish (or Turkish terminal spot sales of 'Kurdish') oil is in
fact ISIS oil stolen in Syria and Iraq really isn't a secret to anybody. To show what is (or
should be) obvious to a reasonably intelligent person is not the same thing as concrete proof
with a documented legal trail. Israel probably regrets the ISIS connection, but ISIS won't be
around forever. Israel plans on buying oil from the Kurds for a long, LONG time, so I don't
expect them to ask too many questions now.
We're talking a few Israeli brokers and refinery buyers, not ten million Israelis conspiring to
buy and sell ISIS oil. If it wasn't Israeli oil dealers, it would be someone else.
Urban Redneck
It's not tenuous, it's politely phrased, but there are actually a lot more people and
institutions involved. The physical oil trade is a black art, and all the practitioners know each
other, and as many times as a title to cargo may trade hands at sea, ONE party is responsible for
legitimizing black market product (after which it can be traded more freely). Unfortunately, the
simplest and least bloody solution is unlikely at this point, international sanctions on Turkey
and an embargo on all oil from Ceyhan not originating from the Baku pipeline.
Lurk Skywatcher
Why Assad would buy oil from a group that uses the cash at its disposal to wage war against
Damascus is an open question especially when one considers that Assad's closest allies (Russia
and Iran) are major oil producers.
Only an open question for trolls and dullards. Syria has lost a lot of its oil infrastructure,
and it needs oil to operate. The Assad government probably isn't buying directly, but
unscrupulous middlemen will try to make a profit no matter what their nationality.
Watch how the MSM will pump the US version, and ignore the Russian version, of who benefits from
ISIS oil sales... it fits their agenda like a glove.
Kayman
Perversely Obama was correct in saying ISIS is the JV team. A small cog in a very illegal,
immoral but lucrative trade in stolen oil. A lot of dirty money to pass around, deposit in
Swiss bank accounts in Potus' name, or members of the family, Congress vendors, etc.
If the U.S. and Nato wanted to- they could strangle the neck of the ISIS chicken by cutting off
all oil going through Turkey and all newbie ISIS recuits and arms heading back into Raqqa.
But there is too much dirty money being made by the real players in the game. Can't have a peace
settlement with dirty hands in the game. I now wonder if the ISIS internet recruitment videos are
being made in Turkey, Israel or Hollywood.
According to this it is Syrian REBELS who are dependent on ISIS oil, it would also partially
explain why is US unhappy with turn of events. It is safe to say that the line between ISIS and
"rebels" is practically non-existent:
"It's a situation that makes you laugh and cry," said one Syrian rebel commander in Aleppo, who
buys diesel from Isis areas even as his forces fight the group on the front lines. "But we have
no other choice, and we are a poor man's revolution. Is anyone else offering to give us fuel?"
Indeed, diesel and petrol produced in Isis areas are not only consumed in territory the group
controls but in areas that are technically at war with it, such as Syria's rebel-held north: the
region is dependent on the jihadis' fuel for its survival.
"At any moment, the diesel can be cut. No diesel - Isis knows our life is completely dead," says
one oil trader who comes from rebel-held Aleppo each week to buy fuel and spoke to the Financial
Times by telephone.
Palladin
According to this article the US destroyed 116 oil trucks, and the Russians destroyed another
500. I don't know how many barrels of oil that is but that has to make a real mess with all that
oil leaking all over the place.
Where are all the Envrionmentlists wringing their Dawn covered hands over all of this. Probably
no Seagulls were harmed, but still somebody has to clean up the mess.
And it seems to me the MSM should be paying more attention to this "Envrrionmental Disaster" like
they love to do whenever an offshore oil rig spills any amount of oil.
Kayman
Palladin
Obama couldn't risk killing "innocent" truck drivers- a direct acknowledgement that everyone but
the public knew Turkey was the oil conduit. Now you are offering him the opportunity to stop
incinerating the trucks for environmental reasons- you ought to be on Obama's staff.
I-am-not-one-of-them's picture
the US used Russian footage of destroying 116 oil trucks as proof. I doubt they did, it's
their mercenaries and their operation
that's why nothing happened in the 2 years they pretended to destroy ISIS and Russia has
immediate success, one is genuine and the other is fake
harleyjohn45
This article says 1300 transports have been destroyed. I read an article that ISIS is using
smaller trucks as tankers now, instead of 36,000 liters to 9000 liters per load. Soon they will
be carrying oil in 5 gallon buckets.
Noplebian
This just about sums up the whole ISIS situation......
This is outstanding, investigative journalism. Not the trash that we get from CNN, Fox and the
BBC.
I just checked Trafigura.com and whenever I see a corporation talking about "ethics and
transparency" (on their home page). I get suspicious. I am sure KPMG or whatever
hooker-accounting firm is auditing this firm, is doing a fine job.
On another side note, Paypal thinks I am a terrorist and money-laundering criminal, because I
wanted to transfer 20 Euros from my Bank account to my Paypal, to buy swimwear on Ebay.
FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM HARD IN THE ASSHOLE.
Herdee
Americans need to look at the world through different perspectives.Use alternative media and
open up your minds:
Russian media claims
the men are "ISIS leaders who it is [thought] participated in
massacres in Syria's Homs and Rojava, the Kurdish name for Syrian
Kurdistan or Western Kurdistan."
How do you say "Chris Matthews" in Rus?
PoasterToaster
The other unasked question is, "After they trade the oil for money, who the hell is selling
them all the weaponry?".
smacker
"[...] the trucks that haul oil north just might have, maybe, a teensy-weensy, tiny,
itsy-bitsy chance of carrying weapons back from Turkey."
I think you're right. Recall that convoy Russian jets bombed yesterday which ended up in flames.
Erdogan bellyached about it in a press interview claiming it was "humanitarian aid" (ho-ho). Too
bad. Video pix showed the trucks had crates of shells and other weaponry. Some of the shells
appeared to have Ukraine/Cyrillic markings on them.
green dragon
Veterens Today makes a case that
[Turkey did this all during the Bush era, having cut a deal with US "manager" Paul Bremmer, a
deal VT insiders helped manage for Bremmer and that I was witness to personally.
The game involved playing Baghdad against Erbil and bleeding off oil revenues from the Kirkuk Oil
Fields, largest oil reserves in the world, as they moved by pipeline through Kurdistan and into
Turkey. There they were offloaded onto American tankers in the Mediterranean where these huge
ships, largest in the world, were filled with oil but it was never recorded and the oil never
paid for.
Turkey got their cut, certain Turkish naval officers became fabulously wealthy while the Bush
cabal poured billions into their Cayman offshore accounts managed by Bain Capital.]
Even if it was some forces not controlled by Erdogan committed this ambush, his reaction was a
typical reaction of ultranationalist, panturkist. All this talk about out turkish brothers is just a
smoke screen for territorial and regional ambitions of Erdogan government. He is becoming kind of
Saudi Arabia Nop.1 but without oil. and that spell trobles for the edonomy and his regime.
Notable quotes:
"... To me Erdogan and his government more and more look like members of Grey Wolf organization, a copycat of Ukrainian Svoboda with the same level of ultra-nationalism and neofascism in their brains. ..."
"... Has anyone considered the possibility this was not Erdogan's decision – perhaps his son's oil partners in ISIS had the right connections in the Turkish military, or suppose Uncle Sam just directed Erdogan to ratchet it up or watch his career dissolved by that same military, or maybe something worse, for males. ..."
"... It's not like going after Syria was Erdogan's idea – he'd had good relations with Assad for years ..."
... Igor Sechin, the former deputy to President Vladimir Putin, was a leading advocate
of forgetting Russia's historical lessons for dealing with the Turks, and disdaining to learn new
ones. Putin was reluctant to learn them until yesterday.
Here they are:
1. Turkey never makes a military move without getting Pentagon approval first.
In order for yesterday's shoot-down of the Su-24 to take place as it did, a battery of signals intelligence
and other electronic warfare means would have been deployed by a joint US-Turkish command unit, giving
the Turkish F-16 pilot confidence he was taking the Russian pilot unprepared. It was not, as the
Turkish Government has
announced, "an automatic response to our airspace being violated" because the airspace was Syrian,
unilaterally claimed by the Turks to be their "exclusion zone". Neither was it, as Putin has
announced, a "stab in the back" from the Turks. Nor was it, as Putin added, "despite the agreement
we have signed with our American partners to prevent air incidents". What happened was full frontal
– it was because of the agreement the Turks have with the US military command.
Nor can Putin have been genuinely surprised that "instead of immediately establishing contacts with
us, as far as we know Turkey turned to its NATO partners to discuss this incident." Had Putin said
he suspected that Turkey turned to "its NATO partners" before the "incident",
he would have been closer to the truth.
2. Aggression by Turkey and the US can be defeated by a smaller force, but it must be
in constant readiness, employing every form of early warning and disguising its force by surprise.
Putin has said the Russian Su-24 was struck by a missile fired by a Turkish F-16 when the Russian
aircraft was one kilometre inside the Syrian side of the border. That being true, Russian air defence
support for the fighter must have been tracking the Turkish aircraft from the second it started its
take-off roll. It ought to have tracked its course upward, and monitored its missile-arming electronics
and such fire orders as came from elsewhere. The Russian warning and control operators and the Su-24
crew should have detected the hostile fire-radar, and had the option to jam it. If none of these
things was done on the Russian side, alerting the Su-24 crew to their peril, the Russian forces weren't
ready, and the Su-24 was taken by surprise. The consequences cannot be explained by the commander-in-chief
telling a visitor – the King of Jordan pretending to call the Russian president his "brother": "we
will never turn a blind eye to such crimes as the one that was committed today." Blind is the word
for it – before, not after.
THE RUSSIAN SU-24 FLIGHT PATH – TURKISH, BBC VERSION
3. In western Europe, in the Balkans, and in the Middle East the Turks have no durable
friend or ally. For Russian strategy not to be ambushed by the Turks, it must have strong allies
like Iran, weak ones like Cyprus and Serbia, and vacillating ones like the Bulgarians, and listen
to their experience of warfighting with the Turks. It is a waste of breath to try reassuring
Ankara that Russia's "plane and our pilots were in no way a threat to the Turkish Republic in any
way." That's because the Turks know we know they are threatening, as well as financing the break-up
of the Russian Caucasus. It's because they know Russia is committed to blocking Turkish expansion,
and to protecting Shiite Iraq and the Kurds from Turkish attack. If these aren't the new strategic
commitments, then Russia should hasten to withdraw its forces before it falls into more bloody ambushes.
If they are the new commitments, then the consequences are as obvious as they are immediate.
All Russians are now at risk if they travel to Turkey, so President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's exclusion
zone should stop all Russian flights and all Russian nationals from entering the country.
Time, too, for the Turks to warm their houses and cook their dinners with someone else's gas.
liberal, November 26, 2015 at 10:08 am
IMHO Turkey didn't consult with the US first. It smells of a stupidity that Ergodan would
commit.
I mean, here's the idiot who apparently didn't game out the overthrow of Assad, and the likely
impact it would have on the Kurds.
timbers,
November 26, 2015 at 10:33 am
Great article. It's implication of how Russia should respond might be:
Russia should concentrate on protecting it's fighters near Turkish border and be prepared to
protect and respond to head off Turkish aggression, and not directly escalate militarily but
instead stay focused on it's original mission.
Putin's past behavior may suggest he will choose a good course not unlike the above, weather he
knows of the lesson Helmer describes, or not. Putin is not rash, realizes that while Russia is
powerful and has options it is not the only powerful nation and faces constraints as well (if
only the US did, too), considers before he moves. Hopefully this will keep him focused on what he
wants to achieve in Syria and not get side tracked with Turkey even if it makes him look "weak"
in the media. Read that Putin is looking at sealing the Syrian-Turkish border, which would freeze
out the biggest influx of trouble makers in Syria. Am thinking Putin should slowly move to freeze
out all Western access to Syrian airspace, perhaps with the much discussed S-400's and another
methods.
Positioning more defensive missiles, jet fighter escorts, and using the radar warning Helmer
discusses to deter and preemptively defend against Turkey repeating this incident, is the best
corse IMO. It appears Russia is doing at least some of these things from what I'm reading.
mike, November 26, 2015 at 3:16 pm
Fair enough assessment; I would not expect a second Russian plan to be shot down! Your
right Putin is not rash!
kl, November 26, 2015 at 10:59 am
The West forgot Turkey. We forgot something it never did, that its main role is
ultra-nationalism and ripping off the West.
Apparently, Russians forgot this too. As a Russian passport offers few travel opportunities,
Turkey and Egypt are prime destinations. I see Russian women suck up to Turkish and other
middle Eastern men regularly. It's sad and shows a complete lack of understanding of the
Turkish aggression, including enslaving slaves not that any centuries ago (officially) and the
extant burgeoning sex slave trade (unofficially) today.
al apaka, November 27, 2015 at 1:43 am
uhhh regarding Russian passports, that is just plain wrong. go to Asia sometime. or Africa.
the rest of your screed is sad, you've obviously got issues with swarthy folks, me senses
projection in your focus on Russian women…lose your wife to a raghead, did you?
digi_owl, November 26, 2015 at 3:16 pm
Turkey has always been a wild card in NATO. Heck, the reason they are a member at all is
that USA needed a standing ground army near the USSR that was not made up of US troops. And
turkey had the biggest such after WW2 (and still has the biggest one next to USA within NATO).
Their physical location also provided a "second front" deterrent to a land war in Europe.
Then again while a land war was perhaps a risk during Stalin, afterwards it was more about
having a buffer between Russia and Germany than anything else. the Soviet leadership was more
worried about a offense from USA than planning some kind of grand takeover of Europe.
kj1313, November 26, 2015 at 9:44 pm
Tbh Turkey is the one country where I would have trusted the military to depose the tin pot
dictator.
Jon, November 27, 2015 at 8:33 am
Turkey is no longer the solid Nato member and unflinching US ally that it was during the
Cold War, or indeed even 15 years ago. The AKP government has new friends in the World and is
happy play its cards against the EU and US when it chooses.
Most like this move was part of Turkey's soft-on-ISIS/hard-on-PKK-and-other-Kurds
playbook and most unlikely to be cleared with the US – though of course playing the Nato
membership card after the event makes sense.
Mustafa, November 27, 2015 at 2:58 pm
Whenever Russian and Turks are fighting our enemies win. When they come together the
history is changing its direction. This the a lesson from the history. There is a saying in
Russian " The Russian-Turkish war from 1877 is a war where we have lost 100 million golden
rubles and 100.000 lives and won nothing." Turkey have lost the Balkans and Cyprus in this
very same war. But Atatürk and Lenin made it differently and the course of the history has
changed. The battle in Galipoli where Atatürk defeated the super powers at that time the
British and French and opened the door for the success of the Soviet revolution in 1917. Then
Lenin gave his hand to Atatürk in 1920 and opened the door for the establishment of the
Republic of Turkey. This was the end of British and French dominance in the east. Putin and
Erdogan have to learn from the history…
likbez, November 27, 2015 at 11:16 pm
To me Erdogan and his government more and more look like members of Grey Wolf
organization, a copycat of Ukrainian Svoboda with the same level of ultra-nationalism and
neofascism in their brains.
Looks like in several countries we are returning to 1930th. Talleyrand complain about the
restoration of the monarchy "These people have learned nothing and forgotten nothing" is
perfectly applicable to nationalism Renaissance we experience today. It this an allergic
reaction on neoliberalism or may be nationalism is once in a century epidemics that hit
mankind to regulate its numbers is unclear to me.
The sad side of this incident is that will damage Russia economically by increasing
economic isolation. So the winner of Peace Nobel Price and all neocons around him got a good
Thanksgiving present. Or, from another point of view, Putin's decision to save Alawite
community from extermination by Islamic radicals backfired. No good deed is left unpunished in
high politics.
Fiver, November 28, 2015 at 4:47 am
Has anyone considered the possibility this was not Erdogan's decision – perhaps his
son's oil partners in ISIS had the right connections in the Turkish military, or suppose Uncle
Sam just directed Erdogan to ratchet it up or watch his career dissolved by that same
military, or maybe something worse, for males.
It's not like going after Syria was Erdogan's idea – he'd had good relations with Assad
for years, but he (and everyone else outside and in) was relentlessly pushed from the
'west' (yes, no capital 'W' earned this century) even as the European portion of it again
failed to open for Turkey – the big payoff of Admission to the EU/EZ that is just recently
promised yet anew for Turkey, but with events will recede again as the ink dries. So Erdogan
cast his lot with Uncle re the 'Arab Regime Change Spring' and like the US, Saudi Arabia,
Israel, Qatar, GCC et al, Erdogan took deeply of the sort of Kool Aid that makes bad ideas
look good – and so Erdogan got religion in both supporting ISIS by enabling ISIS oil
operations and trade in Syria and profiting from it, even while assuring the west it was
taking the fight to ISIS.
This is what they call a 'fluid' situation, and I can well imagine other events that place
one or more other allied leaders in even worse political jams. The collateral damage this
confrontation has already inflicted is stupendous, and being borne by all the wrong people.
I'm sure this will give Erdogan plenty of future reasons for him want to flip back to a more
pro-Syria, or pro-Russia footing. Or more.
On the face of it, it looks like any state-run oil industry.
Engineers, managers and traders all help extract, refine and distribute oil, which makes its way
across Syria and Iraq, as well as overseas. But this is no state-run company. This is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) lifeline
- a business that provides the armed group with more revenue than any other source.
Oil helps to fund its war in Syria and Iraq, as well as to provide electricity to the 10 million
people living under ISIL control. But despite the oil trade being targeted by the US-led coalition against ISIL, the business continues
to thrive.
And many people are increasingly asking why.
Russia has accused Turkey of buying oil from the armed group. Ankara in turn threw this allegation
back at Moscow because of Russian support for Bashar al-Assad, who is also accused of buying oil
from ISIL.
And to complicate matters, ISIL oil is also being sold to other rebel groups in Syria, most of
whom are opposed to ISIL but have no alternative sources of fuel.
So, who are the individuals and groups involved in refining and selling ISIL's oil? And where
does that oil end up?
Jonathan Marshall, an independent researcher living in San Anselmo, California, discusses the
Obama administration's
failure to
broker a peace deal in Syria due to its neocon-like focus on regime change.
"... President Recep Tayyip Erdo an has said he would do it again if he could go back, but he also said we might have reacted differently had we known that the unidentified aircraft was Russian. I'm not sure which statement to believe. ..."
"... In Turkish, we sometimes say "I am telling this to my daughter with the hope that my daughter-in-law will get the message." People in this part of the world communicate obliquely. What is Turkey's overriding concern in Syria? It is keeping the PKK/PYD in check, plain and simple. ..."
"... Thanks to the civil war, the PYD has in some ways surpassed Öcalan's dreams. It has become a governing institution of the Syrian Kurds, and the YPG, its armed wing, has become the main instrument of the Western coalition against ISIL. That means Turkey cannot fight it directly. Meanwhile, Turkey's reconciliation process with its own Kurdish population has come to an abrupt halt. Why? Because the civil war in Syria shifted the balance of power in the Kurds' favor. ..."
The million dollar question is: Why did Turkey do it? The Russians were violating Turkish
airspace on an almost daily basis. Did it feel like it had to make good on its threats for
earlier violations? Why now?
Since the start of this war in Syria, Turkey has wanted to be taken seriously. Syria shot down a
Turkish plane in 2012, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took Turkish Consulate
staff in Mosul hostage for months, and the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD) is steadily gaining
ground with Western backing. Russia's blatant disregard for Ankara's concerns was only the straw
that broke the camel's back. The Turkish leadership felt it necessary to show it means business,
and shooting down a Russian plane, they
thought, might have been a way to show that. But was it the right move? President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
has said he would do it again if he could go back, but he also said we might have reacted
differently had we known that the unidentified aircraft was Russian. I'm not sure which statement
to believe.
In Turkish, we sometimes say "I am telling this to my daughter with the hope that my
daughter-in-law will get the message." People in this part of the world communicate obliquely.
What is Turkey's overriding concern in Syria? It is keeping the PKK/PYD in check, plain and
simple. Turks are obsessed with this, to the extent that talking about fighting ISIS makes
them uncomfortable, not necessarily because they like the group, but because they don't want to
overshadow the threat of the PYD. They have not forgotten that the PYD was established by
Abdullah Öcalan during his exile as a small Syrian arm of his operations. Thanks to the civil
war, the PYD has in some ways surpassed Öcalan's dreams. It has become a governing institution of
the Syrian Kurds, and the YPG, its armed wing, has become the main instrument of the Western
coalition against ISIL. That means Turkey cannot fight it directly. Meanwhile, Turkey's
reconciliation process with its own Kurdish population has come to an abrupt halt. Why? Because
the civil war in Syria shifted the balance of power in the Kurds' favor.
Why did Turkey down that Su-24? Because it needed its Western allies to know that it means
business, even if it won't hit PYD bases directly. That would not normally be a problem, but the
range of responses from Ankara shows
that it was not a very calculated step. Rather, it was a product of our tangled feelings toward
Kurdish politics, which manifested obliquely in the debris of that plane. Similar to the Mavi
Marmara incident, the episode will probably be useful in domestic politics but it will end up
disproportionately hurting Turkey's foreign policy.
Ankara must learn to measure its actions based on realities out there on the ground, not its
emotional and ideological echo chamber at home. In the case of Syria, this means facing up to our
feelings about the Kurds, at home and across the border, once and for all.
"... It's no secret by now that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are funding Islamic extremists in Syria
and Iraq ..."
"... Frida Ghitis says the Syrian conflict "pitted moderates against extremists, and then extremists
against ultra-extremists." http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/24/opinions/ghitis-russia-jet-shot-down/index.html
So I suppose the United States is now on the side of the "extremists." We certainly would never approve
of backing the "ultra-extremists," the way our allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia do. ..."
"... Not Turkmen commander-Turkish ..."
"... So Putin may have to put some of his other goals in the region on the back burner in order
to actually wage war on ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups. ..."
"... Putin is right in saying that Turkey, a NATO member, is backing ISIS, not only financially
but militarily. For Turkey their main interest is in Syrian Kurds not getting organized, armed, and
in control of their own territory. When Turkey says they are fighting ISIS, they are dropping most of
the bombs on Syrian Kurds. And they have never respected Iraq borders when attacking Iraqi Kurds. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia is also supporting ISIS, not only because they also defend an extremist Sunni
Islam as Wahabbist Saudi Arabia, but also because it is part of their proxy wars against Shia Iran,
and Syria is one of the Shia States with Sunni majority. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest supporter
of Islamic terrorism. ..."
"... Holland stupidly wants to march on ISIS, but nobody else wants to put troops on the ground.
The only ones with troops on the ground fighting ISIS are Syrian army and Kurds. The latter ones are
unacceptable to Turkey, so the former ones might become our new ally. ..."
"... Alawites, the core of the Syrian army, are paying a very high price for the war. About a third
of their manpower has died in the 5 year war. They only keep fighting because they know they face extermination
if they lose the war, whether from Syrian Sunnies or from ISIS. ..."
"... who want higher oil prices might have had their wish granted today after the downing of the
russian SU-24 inside syria from a turkish F-16 (you will hear loads of shit in CnnAbcFoxNbcNewYotkTimes…please
feel free to complete the alphabet soup here …they are all the SAME! that it was in turkish air space
but THAT IS A LIE!!!!) ..."
"... It is your right to believe that Erdogan/Turkey -and they alone- are "brave" enough to shoot
down a Russian aircraft while flying OUTSIDE their territory; It is your right to believe that Maidan/Kiev
protests and the ousting of Yanukovich happened/grew genuinely from the Ukrainian people; It is your
right to believe that the pro-russian rebels shut down the MH17 in Ukraine; It is your right to believe
that our army and air force cannot destroy a bunch of white-basketball-shoe-wearing-mid-eval -lunatics
after a year of bombing campaign and that we cannot disrupt their tens of thousands (if not hundreds
of thousands) of barrels of oil per day production/selling which brings them millions of dollars per
day in hard currency (…yet somehow russians did it in a month); It is your right to believe that russians
are threatening Europe even though we are expanding NATO right at their borders; It is your right to
believe that a bunch of illiterate, ugly, smelly morons with rusted AK-47 can defeat France and Belgium;
It is your right to believe that: "…they hate us for our freedoms…" and "…our troops are fighting over
there to keep us safe over here…" and other "lovely" narratives as such. It is your right! ..."
"... Are you absolutely sure of that? The Russians are saying that's not true, that the plane never
entered Turkish air space. Russia's side is presented in this video: https://www.rt.com/news/323369-turkey-downed-russian-jet/
..."
"... If a person is indeed on a truth-finding mission, is it not incumbent upon that person to listen
to what all sides have to say, and then make up one's mind based on the evidence which is presented?
..."
"... RT, for instance, has a short clip of an interview with retired U.S. Airforce general Thomas
McInery where he asserts that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned." ..."
"... If what General McInery says is correct - that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned"
- then there was plenty of time for Anakra to get Washington's approval before the pre-planned attack
occurred. I'm not saying that this happened, only that it is not outside the realm of possiblity. ..."
"... Well as far as I am concerned, President Obama circling the wagons around Turkey hardly qualifies
him as being one the brightest lights on the Christmas tree. Obama is attempting to defend the indefensible.
Why do you believe that is? ..."
"... It is clear that this was an hostile deliberate act by Turkey against Russia regardless of
where that plane was at the moment. Where the plane was is only relevant to see if it was legal or illegal,
but the deliberate hostile act remains either case. ..."
"... Turkey doesn't like the way Russia is helping the Syrian government, but they just proved to
NATO that they are unreliable and more a liability than a trustworthy ally. This is how wars start,
by unjustified escalation. ..."
"... If one watches the RT video I linked above, Erdogan can be heard saying exactly that same thing
back in 2012 after Syria shot down a Turkish jet because of an air space violation. Here's what Erdogan
said then: ..."
"... But whether the US might have given the green light for such an act, and the potential reasons
for such a thing. Well, now that's interesting, despite Ron's insistence that it's absolutely untenable
position. I say, very tenable for a country that has invaded and overthrown dozens of governments in
just my short lifetime. ..."
"... personally think Ves' comment below about Turkey's desperation about losing their proxies is
probably closer to the mark though. I've seen over the past couple decades Turkey has seen itself as
a regional player linking the middle east and Europe and global economic hub. ..."
"... Hey Petro, yeah, just on the face of it I didn't see your comment as being that outlandish.
the united states has a very very very long history of making moves that seem quite "beyond the pale"
..."
"... To say, if he did, that the US directly said, "shoot a plane down ASAP" is probably unlikely.
But Turkey, a member of NATO, might be a little hesitant to take such an action unless it felt that
the United States had its back. Now Turkey has been a bit "rogue" in recent years – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/turkey-denies-agreement-open-air-bases-us-isis
. I mean the final answer is really above my pay grade, but I think you are beginning to see that there
are a lot of moving parts to this equation and I'm beginning to agree with wimbi – can we go back to
how much drag there would be on a bomber if it lost its tail section? ..."
"... That Turks are so desperate to stop their proxies in Syria being annihilated within next few
months? Shooting down Russian plane is what desperate party does in order to change war dynamics on
the ground. ..."
"... Unlike US, Russia is very active attacking oil trucks that smuggle ISIS oil to Turkey. Those
trucks belong to a shipping company BMZ that belongs to the son of Erdogan. Russia is causing a personal
economic loss to the Erdogan family. ..."
"... The international coalition against Syria and Russia is beginning to crack on the wake of the
Paris attacks by ISIS. Turkey doesn't want that to happen. This explains the shooting of the plane and
the rushed going of Turkey to NATO to ask for support. It is intended to dynamite any possibility of
understanding between US-lead coalition in Syria and Russia against ISIS. Obama has his hands tied,
as he needs to use his base in Turkey. ..."
Opening up natural gas supplies to Turkey and Europe which are not controlled by Russia and
its allies? This requires a pipeline across Syria but Assad nixed the deal.
No wonder Saudi Prince…told President Vladmir Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad,
it will be "completely" in Saudi Arabia's hands and will "not sign any agreement allowing any
Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports",
according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action.
THE GUARDIAN, "Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern"
Something tells me Putin is gonna turn up the dial on Turkeys little Kurdish problem. Putin has
a lot of levers to choose from in dealing with Turkey. Whilst Russia does need Turkey perhaps
more than Turkey needs Russia they certainly don't need Erdogan.
Watcher, 11/24/2015 at 5:18 pm
btw given these short time periods quoted, you also have to add the seconds req'd for all these
alleged warnings.
ZH commenters are saying Turkish PM's son is the primary recipient of ISIS
oil flowing thru Turkey. That was motivation, allegedly. Shrug.
I can say one thing for sure, no way in hell there were 10 warnings of this jet in the time
frame available.
Jimmy, 11/24/2015 at 8:00 pm
Russia seems to be getting in the way of the Turkish Presidents family business of smuggling ISIS
oil. FOX missed it.
It's no secret by now that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are funding Islamic extremists in
Syria and Iraq:
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are actively supporting a hardline coalition of
Islamist rebels against Bashar al-Assad's regime that includes al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria….
The decision by the two leading allies of the West to back a group in which al-Nusra plays
a leading role has alarmed Western governments and is at odds with the US, which is firmly opposed
to arming and funding jihadist extremists in Syria's long-running civil war.
So I suppose the United States is now on the side of the "extremists." We certainly would never
approve of backing the "ultra-extremists," the way our allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia do.
twocats,11/25/2015 at 9:28 pm
I thought Russia and US both agreed to start bombing oil shipments. Of course, the US didn't WANT
to do that as it weakens their proxy allies. It's an a great game of thrones episode that's for
sure.
I'm calling "completely irrelevant due to the fact that it's irrelevant". Is Turkey at war with
Russia? Are they in a direct conflict in any way really? Does ISIS have bombers? So there's absolutely
positively no way they could have "mistaken" the bomber for something else. And unless they are
ready to declare war directly with Russia, the attack is on the verge of insanity.
I know sovereignty is important and all, and they could certainly buzz and even fire "shots
across the bow" pretty easily. If we are disputing between 19 and 10 seconds of air space violations,
we are idiots. Geeky idiots, but idiots nonethe less.
Fernando Leanme, 11/26/2015 at 5:06 am
The Turks were defending Turkmen on the Syrian side. Erdogan said so. The Russians may sit
down with turkey and concede a portion of Latakia to Turkey. The excuse will be the fact that
it's populated by Turkmen. If Turkey agrees and redraws the border it will be huge win for Russia.
It will give them the precedent to justify taking over the Crimea and the Donbas.
Germany apparently has come to a similar conclusion.
German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said:
This incident shows for the first time that we are to dealing with an actor who is unpredictable
according to statements from various parts of the region – that is not Russia, that is Turkey.
The MSM talking heads are also swinging into action to defend Turkey, arguing that even if
the Russian jet was not shot down over Turkey (something an anonymous Pentagon official told Reuters
is the case, since video evidence makes further denials by Anakra and Washington unplausible)
then Russia still had it coming. Nick Burns, former National Security Council Director for Russian
Affairs, charged:
There's an important principle at stake here… Every nation has a right to protect its own
borders. And President Obama sided with the Turks today in saying that they have that right.
It was a gross violation of international law for the Russians to even fly close to that
border…
The Russians may have thought that the Turks weren't serious but they found out today they
were.
This incident should shed light on the fact that neither the great powers (like the US, France
or Russia) nor the regional players (like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or Iran) are participating in
this conflict to fight a common enemy, ISIS. They are there for other reasons.
Russia, however, is in a tough spot. Pepe Escobar, for instance, noted in Asia Times
that Russia has eight times the Islamic extremists living on its soil as does France:
So Putin may have to put some of his other goals in the region on the back burner in order
to actually wage war on ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups.
It is a very complex issue as every player has different interests. Putin is right in saying
that Turkey, a NATO member, is backing ISIS, not only financially but militarily. For Turkey their
main interest is in Syrian Kurds not getting organized, armed, and in control of their own territory.
When Turkey says they are fighting ISIS, they are dropping most of the bombs on Syrian Kurds.
And they have never respected Iraq borders when attacking Iraqi Kurds.
Saudi Arabia is also supporting ISIS, not only because they also defend an extremist Sunni
Islam as Wahabbist Saudi Arabia, but also because it is part of their proxy wars against Shia
Iran, and Syria is one of the Shia States with Sunni majority. Saudi Arabia is probably the biggest
supporter of Islamic terrorism.
The Alawites of Syria (including the al-Assad family) are also happy that ISIS is in Syria.
Without them they have no chance of keeping power, but in a three sides war with one of them being
unacceptable to Occident, they are no longer looking so bad.
Syrian opposition is the big loser here. They are bombed by Turkey and Russia (different targets)
and attacked on land by Alawites and ISIS as each one wants to expand first at their expense.
This is why refugees are coming out in droves now as the war is getting much worse.
Turkey feels pretty safe. NATO has no choice but to close ranks, and the European Union is
paying big money to Turkey to keep a lid on the refugee problem, as Spain does with Morocco.
Holland stupidly wants to march on ISIS, but nobody else wants to put troops on the ground.
The only ones with troops on the ground fighting ISIS are Syrian army and Kurds. The latter ones
are unacceptable to Turkey, so the former ones might become our new ally.
Alawites, the core of the Syrian army, are paying a very high price for the war. About
a third of their manpower has died in the 5 year war. They only keep fighting because they know
they face extermination if they lose the war, whether from Syrian Sunnies or from ISIS.
I wonder what Obama will say about the right of a country to shoot down an aircraft for airspace
violation….when one of theirs gets shot down over the Spratleys by China?
who want higher oil prices might have had their wish granted today after the downing of
the russian SU-24 inside syria from a turkish F-16 (you will hear loads of shit in CnnAbcFoxNbcNewYotkTimes…please
feel free to complete the alphabet soup here …they are all the SAME! that it was in turkish air
space but THAT IS A LIE!!!!)
Let us ALL hope and pray that Putin does not take this at face value (Act of WAR!….which indeed
is….probably ordered by your and my tax dollars in DC)….for if He does, oil prices are going to
be the last thing we have to worry about, dear Shallow Sand!!!!
Be well,
Petro
P.S.: sorry for the off topic comment Ron and thank you for the post!
(Act of WAR!….which indeed is….probably ordered by your and my tax dollars in DC)…
Petro, that that the shooting down of this Russian plane was probably ordered by the President,
or the Pentagon, is the most ignorant thing I have ever read on this blog. Any goddamn fool with
half a brain would know better than that.
Sorry for the strong language but when someone posts something so utterly stupid just to take
a swipe at our President, or government, really pisses me off.
That being said, I agree that Turkey shooting down that Russian plane was a very stupid and
dangerous thing for Turkey to do. But to say such action was ordered by the US is beyond
belief.
First, I would like to apologize for being caught in your "cross-hairs" as the result of my
unorthodox comment. It will not happen again!
Second, I genuinely respect the tremendous amount of time and information with which you so
generously enable all of us frequenting this great forum each and every week! As I have mentioned
on numerous comments of mine here, I feel lucky and empowered every time I read one of your well
written "mind-teasers".
I truly do!
-For those reasons (and a couple of others) I will not engage on answering:
"…is the most ignorant thing I have ever read on this blog. Any goddamn fool with half a brain
would know better than that…."
and
"…when someone posts something so utterly stupid…".
I would sincerely hope however, that in this forum we refrain from using word concoctions such
as : "goddamn fool", "utterly stupid", "most ignorant thing I have ever read" aimed at the PERSONAL
level – even when scientifically and logically (with regard to this blog) they are "deserved"
– i.e. when Peter writes "If 2015 is the peak Oil year, then it is the $45 per barrel peak.
This should give people pause for thought. How on earth can we really be at peak oil, with
prices this low. We cannot."
-or RDG writes "Peak Oil is irrelevant because the world's methane potential is underestimated…"
-or Arceus writes"I suspect if the Saudis could double their production to 20 million boepd
they could almost double their market share. The only downside would be oil would likely be selling
at 20 dollars per barrel."
-to which you (to my delight-I might add) replied:
"That's the funniest thing I have read in weeks."
It is your right to believe that Erdogan/Turkey -and they alone- are "brave" enough to
shoot down a Russian aircraft while flying OUTSIDE their territory;
It is your right to believe that Maidan/Kiev protests and the ousting of Yanukovich happened/grew
genuinely from the Ukrainian people;
It is your right to believe that the pro-russian rebels shut down the MH17 in Ukraine;
It is your right to believe that our army and air force cannot destroy a bunch of white-basketball-shoe-wearing-mid-eval
-lunatics after a year of bombing campaign and that we cannot disrupt their tens of thousands
(if not hundreds of thousands) of barrels of oil per day production/selling which brings them
millions of dollars per day in hard currency (…yet somehow russians did it in a month);
It is your right to believe that russians are threatening Europe even though we are expanding
NATO right at their borders;
It is your right to believe that a bunch of illiterate, ugly, smelly morons with rusted AK-47
can defeat France and Belgium;
It is your right to believe that: "…they hate us for our freedoms…" and "…our troops are fighting
over there to keep us safe over here…" and other "lovely" narratives as such.
It is your right!
What I am trying to suggest however, is that there is quite a bit of very logical and credible
evidence that points to other versions of the "truth".
…and NO!
I do not follow idiots akin to Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh…, nor do I wear a tin foil hat.
You say: "…our President, or government…"
I say that the LAST president to be considered truly OURS was JFK.
How did we go from Jefferson/Adams/Payne/…..JFK to ReaganBushClintonBushWO and worse- seriously
considering idiots like TrumpHillarious – is beyond me and only Heavens know (I guess A.Bartlet
applies even with regard to "worse" and "worse-er" and "worse-rer-rer" people).
What is really done in our name and with our money dear Ron, shall give a "heart attack" to us
all …very soon.
In any case, I tried to follow up with Shallow since he was worried about oil prices and I
have replied to him (and others) about that on several previous comments.
Again, I apologize for my unorthodox comment and for any unintentional insult.
Petro, I stand by my comment. The plane was in Turkish air space for seconds. If you think
someone in Washington said "shoot the goddamn thing down" then you are a fool.
There was not time to notify anyone except Turkish officials on the ground. Turkey does not
take orders from Washington.
Nothing else going on in France, Belgium or anywhere else had anything to do with what I wrote
or what I was replying to. You simply saw an opportunity to blame the US government for something
they very obviously had nothing to do with. I would have agreed with everything you wrote in that
one post had you not took the opportunity to blame it on Washington. If you are going to post
on this blog then you have the obligation to use a little common sense.
If a person is indeed on a truth-finding mission, is it not incumbent upon that person
to listen to what all sides have to say, and then make up one's mind based on the evidence
which is presented?
RT, for instance, has a short clip of an interview with retired U.S. Airforce general Thomas
McInery where he asserts that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned."
One could probably do no better than to heed the advice which Thomas Jefferson gave his nephew
in a letter dated August 10, 1787:
[S]hake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched.
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question
with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of
the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear….
Hey, that was not my point. My point was that the shoot down was not ordered by the US Government
in Washington.
Shooting down that Russian warplane was an extremely stupid thing for Turkey to do. But what
is even more stupid is to say that the shoot down was ordered by Washington.
The plane was in Turkish air space for seconds. If you think someone in Washington said
"shoot the goddamn thing down" then you are a fool.
If what General McInery says is correct - that the downing of the Russian jet "had to be
pre-planned" - then there was plenty of time for Anakra to get Washington's approval before the
pre-planned attack occurred. I'm not saying that this happened, only that it is not outside the
realm of possiblity.
I have a feeling like these cat-and-mouse games between pilots probably go on continuously
during conflict situations. However, I have no experience in these matters, and oddly enough,
the only fighter pilot I've ever known in my entire life was transgendered:
I also worked for "T" vets inclusion in GLBVA during those years and VA support of "T" vets
(which finally happened recently) – I'm a retired USAF Major and Command Pilot. During the
'90s I was a rather prolific writer; although, quite a bit of it is probably lost to transgender
antiquity. I've been lecturing on gender, gender roles, and the "T" topic at Trinity University
for the past 16 years.
there was plenty of time for Anakra to get Washington's approval before the pre-planned
attack occurred. I'm not saying that this happened, only that it is not outside the realm of
possiblity.
Goddammit, will the stupid shit never stop. It is just down in the dirt stupid to suggest that
the President would want such a thing. It could lead to the break-up of NATO. Also, the very idea
that Turkey would cot-tow to Washington's wishes is also stupid.
To shoot this plane down was the stupidest thing Turkey could possibly do. But a lot stupider
things have been done by Middle East Islamic rulers causing things to get a lot worse. But
to suggest that our President is just as stupid is beyond the pale. Can you guys just not
use a little common sense?
To suggest that Washington was behind this smacks of a conspiracy theory. I think all conspiracy
theorists have a screw loose.
Well as far as I am concerned, President Obama circling the wagons around Turkey hardly
qualifies him as being one the brightest lights on the Christmas tree. Obama is attempting to
defend the indefensible. Why do you believe that is?
And you don't believe that reinforces the appearance of impropriety, of him being complicit
in Turkey's shooting down the plane? Talk about bad optics!
Mark Ames minces no words:
Russia will just have to play and replay the shooting down of its jet, and the Syrian
rebels gloating over the dead pilots, to see Putin's already sky-high popularity ratings push
even higher….
Point being: this is working out wonderfully for Putin.
In fact, if there's any conspiracy I can make sense of with what's gone on over the past
year and a half, it's that anti-Russia neocons and their pals have been doing everything possible
to increase Putin's popularity and power at home, in order to build him up as an even more
plausible villain over here. Or maybe they're straight-up Putin moles. But that of course gives
everyone, especially these idiots, too much credit.
Glenn, the idea that Obama ordered the shooting down the Russian plane is pure ignorance, stupidity
gone to seed. I will not lower myself by arguing such an utterly stupid scenario.
One more point. This is not a conspiracy theory website. We do not discuss conspiracy theories
here.
Turkey, "A lot of recent missions by Russia has put them very close to our borders if not outright
in our airspace. What do you want us to do."
White House, "You have the right to defend the sovereignty of your airspace by any means you
deem necessary. We feel that Russia is being very reckless in their choice of targets and are
endangering stability in the area."
NATO, "You do realize that if Turkey provokes Russia it could draw us directly into the conflict."
White House, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
I mean, if you can't see some version of the above dialogue happening then all I can say to
you that you'll understand is, "God Bless America, the greatest country that ever existed."
Does it really matter? There is international consensus that planes are not shot down for briefly
entering foreign airspace without permit when the nations are not belligerent. Airspace is not
clearly delimited up in the air and pilots are often too busy to check.
It is clear that this was an hostile deliberate act by Turkey against Russia regardless
of where that plane was at the moment. Where the plane was is only relevant to see if it was legal
or illegal, but the deliberate hostile act remains either case.
To me it looks like the Russian plane was flying in circles and was passing over a small tip
(~2 km wide) of Turkish territory each time. This was used as an excuse to shoot down the plane
in what cannot be claimed as a self-defense act, but clearly a hostile warning.
Turkey doesn't like the way Russia is helping the Syrian government, but they just proved
to NATO that they are unreliable and more a liability than a trustworthy ally. This is how wars
start, by unjustified escalation.
There is international consensus that planes are not shot down for briefly entering foreign
airspace without permit when the nations are not belligerent. Airspace is not clearly delimited
up in the air and pilots are often too busy to check.
If one watches the RT video I linked above, Erdogan can be heard saying exactly that same
thing back in 2012 after Syria shot down a Turkish jet because of an air space violation. Here's
what Erdogan said then:
A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack.
fuck an A glen, you're back to the minutiae of that!! stop derailing these conversations about
whether or not the plane was in airspace of turkey. I mean really does it matter?! 1km, 40 km,
I don't know, irrelevant.
But whether the US might have given the green light for such an act, and the potential
reasons for such a thing. Well, now that's interesting, despite Ron's insistence that it's absolutely
untenable position. I say, very tenable for a country that has invaded and overthrown dozens of
governments in just my short lifetime.
I personally think Ves' comment below about Turkey's desperation about losing their proxies
is probably closer to the mark though. I've seen over the past couple decades Turkey has seen
itself as a regional player linking the middle east and Europe and global economic hub.
Or it could just be the pilot took the wrong pills getting into the cockpit.
"If you are going to post on this blog then you have the obligation to use a little common
sense."
Dear Ron,
I clearly was!
Not just a little, but a lot of common sense.
In my comment to Shallow I wrote: "…sorry for the off topic comment Ron…"
In my second comment to you I wrote: "…First, I would like to apologize for being caught in your
"cross-hairs" as the result of my unorthodox comment.
It will not happen again!…"
I did that, for I did not want to remind you of our first exchange on this site -in which you
got a taste of how good I am at "shooting back" (just as Erdogan shall taste how good Putin is
at shooting back …very soon!)
-Yet, you continued with your hysterical, inflammatory bursting!
I am not certain what pricked your "bubble" -holiday shopping not going well, perhaps – my condolences!
In any event, you GROSSLY misunderstood and misrepresented what I wrote.
Nowhere did I write that: " …ourPresident ordered: shoot the goddamn thing down…" – as you so
eloquently put it.
Let me repeat to you what I wrote (short term amnesia – especially when one is enraged – is a
bitch!):
"….probably ordered by your and my tax dollars in DC…".
-What I was trying to convey (obviously fruitlessly!) was that even though Erdogan/Turks pulled
the trigger (or maybe you prefer: "pushed the button") and shot the SU24 down, our un-Kosherly
dumb (at the very best!) policies for the last 15 years (and maybe longer!) in the region (and
wider), have GREATLY empowered "Erdogan" types.
Key word is "at the very best" here, for there is unmistakable and unambiguous evidence to suggest
the other extreme of that spectrum (hint: intent)!
-Whether you consider a senior senator (i.e.McCain) posing with known international criminal
be-headers, or viceSercretaryOfState (i.e.V.Nuland) hand picking puppets for the head of KievGovrmt
after orchestrating, directing and financing a CLASSIC "coup d'etat" to overthrow the previous
govmt there, part of ourGovrmt, or NOT – is your business.
However, that does not give you the moral and social (let alone the common sense one!) right to
engage in hysterical, inflammatory and wildly accusational burstings against somebody – even on
your blog site!
If that is your idea of patriotism, you surely missed it!
-Yes!
It was theTurks who shot down theRussian aircraft – not us!
But to put it in a historical context, SIMPLER for you to understand:
it was NOT Great Britain, France and US (among others) that in 1933 made Adolf Hitler Reich Chancellor;
it was the Germans – whether they be German elites, or German plebes!
Behavior(s) and decisions by political and economical/financial leaders in those Countries
however, GREATLY facilitated Hitler's ascend to power!
In December 1938, less than 10 months before starting the carnage that killed 100 million people
worldwide , Hitler was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year".
I would strongly suggest to you sources other than NYT and Fox for your world news updates
– you would be enlightened!
If you do not want me to comment here and this is personal, be a man and say so without wild explosions
of nastiness!
We are all adults here (one can only hope!) and can take it.
And stop throwing the "conspiracy" label around, as well!
Makes you sound very foolish and brainwashed.
-Have a good Thanksgiving tomorrow and maybe/hopefully by Friday feel more relaxed…
Hey Petro, yeah, just on the face of it I didn't see your comment as being that outlandish.
the united states has a very very very long history of making moves that seem quite "beyond the
pale"
in this specific case, ron's point that this move seems really really stupid does ring true
for me. but i think we need to wait a little longer and see how it plays out to know for sure.
Back in 2010 I was living in Pensacola, FL. Right after the Deep Water Horizon disaster everyone
was pointing the finger, blaming somebody. And there was a lot of blame to go around but I met
several folks here that blamed Obama. Yes, they said, Obama planned and ordered the whole disaster.
Just why he would order such a thing no one seemed to know. A few came up with a reason, but no
one had the same reason as the other nut cases.
I see the same thing in almost every other disaster throughout the world, "Obama planned and
ordered the whole disaster". So whenever I see someone blaming Obama, or Washington, for this
or that disaster, it really pisses me off.
And like the other nut cases that blamed Obama for the Macondo disaster, they cannot come up
with a reason that Obama would do such a thing, but he is the US president and they hate everything
that comes out of Washington so he must have been somehow responsible.
Some people never ever miss a chance to blame Obama, or Washington, for some evil act especially
when it cannot be proven otherwise.
Yep I'll definitely give you the anti-Washington, and vehement anti-Obama thing (gotta be a
lot of rascism wrapped up in that). But I'm assuming you are aware of the fairly well known shenanigans
of the United States in terms of intervening and influencing countries in order to make terrible
terrible things happen:
1) training Saddam to help overthrow Qasim which led to, well Saddam
2) overhthrowing Mossadeg to install Shah which led to Iranian Revolution
3) giving Saddam chemical weapons to kill 100s thousands of Iranians
4) training Al-Qaeda to fight Russia in Afghanistan, and latter trained again to fight in Kosovo
5) Backed wahabi tribe of Saud and backed their play for power in Arabian penninsula which led
to of course Saudi Arabia, despised totalitarian regime which regularly beheads and then crucifies
people.
i mean i could go on for hours. so the idea that United States hinted to Turkey that it wouldn't
be upset if it 1) defended its border, 2) defended Turkmen majority cities on Syrian side (thanks
Fernando), these are not such crazy notions. (see article from oriental review –
http://orientalreview.org/2015/11/25/whys-the-us-hanging-turkey-out-to-dry/)
Petro's post was a little long and poorly written so i didn't read it all and he may have been
overstating it.
To say, if he did, that the US directly said, "shoot a plane down ASAP" is probably unlikely.
But Turkey, a member of NATO, might be a little hesitant to take such an action unless it felt
that the United States had its back. Now Turkey has been a bit "rogue" in recent years –
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/turkey-denies-agreement-open-air-bases-us-isis.
I mean the final answer is really above my pay grade, but I think you are beginning to see that
there are a lot of moving parts to this equation and I'm beginning to agree with wimbi – can we
go back to how much drag there would be on a bomber if it lost its tail section?
but I think you are beginning to see that there are a lot of moving parts to this equation
I am beginning to see there is a lot of bullshit in this equation and it is getting deeper
and deeper. As I said, it is very easy to throw out bullshit when it cannot be proven otherwise.
You can seem like a master of knowledge when all you really are is a master of bullshit.
The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside
Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
The official said that assessment was based on detection of the heat signature of the jet.
---------------
Russia to move S-400 air defense system to Syria - defense minister
MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Russia will move its air defense system S-400 Triumf to the Hmeimim
air base in Syria, accommodating its air and space group, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said
on Wednesday.
The Russian General Staff has warned that Russia will be destroying all potentially dangerous
targets over Syria and moved towards the Syrian shores its guided missile cruiser The Moskva armed
with the Fort system (the sea-launched equivalent of S-300).
-----------------–
Second pilot of downed Su-24 jet safe, brought to Russian base - Russian defense minister
MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The second pilot of the Su-24 bomber downed by Turkey has been
rescued by the Russian and Syrian forces and is safe and sound, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu
said on Wednesday.
"The operation ended successfully. The pilot has been taken to our base. Safe and sound," Shoigu
said.
He said the rescue operation lasted for 12 hours.
-------------------–
Turkey's Erdogan says does not want escalation after Russian jet downed
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey did not want any escalation after it
shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border, saying it had simply acted to defend its
own security and the "rights of our brothers" in Syria.
But while neither side has shown any interest in a military escalation, Russia has made clear
it will exact economic revenge through trade and tourism. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said
on Wednesday that important joint projects could be canceled and Turkish firms could lose Russian
market share.
Increased tensions could have significant economic and political repercussions which are in neither
Moscow nor Ankara's interests, analysts warned. But both Putin and Erdogan are strong-willed leaders
ill-disposed to being challenged.
"If Erdogan becomes involved a cycle of violence, FDI (foreign direct investment), tourism,
and relations with the EU and U.S. will all be in jeopardy," risk analysis firm Eurasia Group
said in a note.
"Our bet is that the episode will not escalate … National interest will probably prevail over
emotion, but given the players, that's not a sure bet."
Turkey imports almost all of its energy from Russia, including 60 percent of its gas and 35 percent
of its oil. Russia's state Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) is due to build Turkey's first
nuclear power station, a $20 billion project, while plans are on the table for a gas pipeline
from Russia known as TurkStream.
Turkish building and beverage companies also have significant interests in Russia.
Shares in Enka Insaat, which has construction projects in Russia and two power plants in Turkey
using Russian gas, fell for a second day on Wednesday. Brewer Anadolu Efes, which has six breweries
in Russia and controls around 14 percent of the market, also saw its shares fall on Tuesday.
Russians are second only to Germans in terms of the numbers visiting Turkey, bringing in an estimated
$4 billion a year in tourism revenues. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday advised
them not to visit and one of Russia's largest tour operators to the country said it would temporarily
suspend sales of trips.
Turkish might have built themselves a no-fly zone at their Syrian border. Russians have Syrian
permit to fly their space, while Turkish have not. After what has happened any Turkish plane over
Syrian space can be considered a dangerous target by the Russians and shot down.
I don't understand Turkish actions. If it was a military decision from some commander, they
should have tried to apologize, and not run to NATO for cover. If it was a presidential decision,
I fail to see what good can come from it for Turkey.
Anyway, I hope those Russian tourists going to Egypt or Turkey can find some solace in Spain
[grin].
It is very obvious what they want. They want NATO boots on the ground. Do you want to go? Do
you know any of Germans that want to go? Greeks, Italians? There are no takers in Europe. Even
Obama is not biting.
I've never been in favor of bombing other countries, much less of sending troops.
NATO is a defensive pact in theory. I could understand NATO troops in Turkey if invaded by
Russia, but not NATO troops in Syria because Turkey shoots down Russian planes. And I don't believe
Turkey is trying to trigger a Russian aggression. Too much to lose.
That Turks are so desperate to stop their proxies in Syria being annihilated within next
few months? Shooting down Russian plane is what desperate party does in order to change war dynamics
on the ground.
Found a much better explanation than yours over at Euan Mearn's blog in a Syrian drought article
in the comments.
Unlike US, Russia is very active attacking oil trucks that smuggle ISIS oil to Turkey.
Those trucks belong to a shipping company BMZ that belongs to the son of Erdogan. Russia is causing
a personal economic loss to the Erdogan family.
The international coalition against Syria and Russia is beginning to crack on the wake
of the Paris attacks by ISIS. Turkey doesn't want that to happen.
This explains the shooting of the plane and the rushed going of Turkey to NATO to ask for support.
It is intended to dynamite any possibility of understanding between US-lead coalition in Syria
and Russia against ISIS. Obama has his hands tied, as he needs to use his base in Turkey.
Putin is probably too smart to respond. He'll find another way. Perhaps supporting
Kurds.
Javier,
Drought? So we have all armadas of the world, including Lichenstain's one plane, circling Middle
East for the last 30 years because of – drought??!!!
No wonder you believe that one of the stated EU goals is for everybody to hold hands and sing
Kumbaya at Eurovison contest. Javier, it's always having been delusions of power, control and
mucho dinero that caused the conflict- not drought.
Glenn,
that is exactly what explained to Javier. Cutting the oil line for the finance of the Turkish
proxies. Once the money line is cut even the proxies don't fight for free.
Euan Mearns is a frequent visitor and commenter in this blog. He was also a frequent contributor
of The Oil Drumm. He has a very good blog on Energy and also some Climate. If you just google
his name you get there. The link to the article is this: http://euanmearns.com/drought-climate-war-terrorism-and-syria/
The information I posted was in one of the comments.
The article actually argues against the climate change-Syrian war-ISIS connection that has appeared
in some media.
Thanks Javier. Okey with that little bit of info from you I know what to expect when I click
on that link. I will read it.
You have to understand that I limit my reading to only few limited sources just not to corrupt
my mind. You see there are expert internet oil "analysts" who claim that US is oil exporter so
there are very dangerous stuff out there in cyber space.
Javier,
I agree with article but I am floored that he actually spent all that energy debunking that nonsense
that drought caused all this. Who armed all these people, who financed illegal oil operations,
where thousands oil tankers are from, why after 4 years of civil war refugees just suddenly start
flowing to Europe this summer, so someone let them purposely go, who is blackmailing Europe?
the most ignorant, craziest, stupidest, outrageously reasonably explained plausible fitting
into global and regional goals possible thing that's ever been said on this blog:
Russia's pledge to take the issue of
Turkey's alleged financing of terrorist factions within
Syria -- such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
-- to the United Nations after Turkey recently shot down its jet, has stirred speculation that Turkey
could be tried in international courts.
Tensions between Turkey and Russia have been running
amok over the past few days, as on Tuesday NATO's second largest army the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)
downed a Russian Su-24 jet near the Syrian border, after repeatedly warning it over airspace violations.
Moscow blames Turkey and has set about bolstering its military presence in the region, dispatching
several S-400 air defense systems to bolster its Khmeimim air base in Syria's Latakia province. The
Kremlin is also determined to punish its one-time friend with economic sanctions such as refusing
to buy poultry from Turkey and ordering Russian tourists not to visit the country.
However, the biggest damage Turkey may incur in the fallout of the fallen jet may come after the
statements made by Russian leaders, which claim that they will take the issue of ISIL's financial
avenues to the UN Security Council -- and that may cause Turkey a much-unneeded headache.
President Vladimir Putin called the downing of the jet a stab in the back administered by "the
accomplices of terrorists," referring to Turkey and ISIL.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed Putin, when he said on Wednesday that the Turkish
action came after Russian planes successfully targeted the oil infrastructure used by ISIL.
More importantly, Lavrov alleged that Turkey benefited from the oil trade and said Russia will
ask the UN Security Council to examine information on how terrorists are financed.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan defied those claims on Thursday saying, "Those who claim we [AK
Party] have brought petrol from Daesh [the Arabic term for ISIL], are required to prove their claims,
otherwise I will call them [Russian leaders] slanderers."
This is not the first time Turkey has been accused of intermediating ISIL's oil. In July a senior
Western official claimed that information gathered at the compound of Abu Sayyaf, ISIL's officer
responsible for oil smuggling operations, pointed to high-level contacts between Turkish officials
and high-ranking ISIL members, according to a report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper.
Turkey, which only started to take an active part in the international coalition against ISIL,
reluctantly, and after two years, has also been accused of turning a blind eye to the crossing of
militants into Syria to join ISIL, if not openly facilitating militants' border crossings to join
ISIL in Syria.
While giving voice to veiled criticisms of Turkey's dubious dealings with ISIL, Western officials
had refrained, until very recently, from directly critiquing Turkish authorities. Russia's recent
disclosures indicate that Turkey may be the target of international scrutiny.
Law professor gives al-Bashir example, says trial of Turkey ruler may be possible in future
Günal Kurşun, a professor of criminal law and the president of the Association for Human Rights
Agenda, maintained that the current administration could only be tried in international tribunals
if and when a new administration comes along and wants to clear the name of the country.
Kurşun gave the example of Omar al-Bashir, the internationally ostracized leader of Sudan, who
is currently being tried on 10 counts of crime, including five counts of crimes against humanity,
two counts of war crimes, and three counts of genocide according to the International Criminal Court
(ICC).
The law professor added that even though the legal aspects of Turkey's rulers such as Erdoğan
being tried in the ICC may not be certain, the political ramifications will be far reaching, even
as far as to confine the rulers within Turkey by way of entry restrictions to other countries.
He explained to Today's Zaman that there are three parties that can bring up a court case in the
ICC against an individual.
To begin with, the prosecutor of the ICC can initiate an investigation, as can a state party to
the Rome statute and also the UN Security Council (UNSC) may refer investigations to the ICC, acting
to address a threat to international peace and security.
There are four instances where individuals can be tried at the ICC. Those are on charges of genocide,
aggression, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Kurşun said it is possible for the UNSC to ascertain
Turkey as aiding ISIL, which is held as an international terrorist organization, but added that without
the cooperation of the member state, not much could be done in terms of the investigation.
Erdoğan's tacit acknowledgment of weapons filled trucks en-route Syria
Also, the question of whether President Erdoğan should be tried at the (ICC) as an individual
stemming from allegations that he had knowledge of, if not actively facilitated, the transfer of
weapons-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria, claimed by many to be ISIL.
The issue of Turkey's transportation of arms to Syria came to the fore early in 2014, when an
anonymous tip led to the search of a number of trucks on the suspicion of weapons smuggling. It was
later discovered that the vehicles where actually en route to Syria and belonged to the National
Intelligence Organization (MİT).
The first stop-and-search took place in Hatay province on Jan. 1, 2014. Another anonymous tip
led to three more trucks being intercepted in Turkey's southern Adana province on Jan. 19, 2014.
Erdoğan who was prime minister at the time, said in a TV program immediately after the search
of the trucks became public that they were carrying aid supplies to Turkmens in Syria. On the program,
Erdoğan appeared to be particularly angry with the prosecutor for having demanded the search of the
trucks to be recorded on video and described the search as "treason."
However, Syrian-Turkmen Assembly Vice Chairman Hussein al-Abdullah said in January 2014 no trucks
carrying aid had arrived from Turkey.
Then, this Tuesday, Erdoğan seemingly validated claims that the Turkish government was sending
weapon-filled trucks to radical groups in Syria by sarcastically asking, "So what if MİT trucks were
filled with weapons?"
Speaking to a room full of teachers on Tuesday gathered for Teachers' Day, Erdoğan said, "You
know of the treason regarding MİT trucks, don't you? So what if there were weapons in them? I believe
that our people will not forgive those who sabotaged this support."
In May, Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of the Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) said
in an election rally in the run up to the June 7 general election; "They [the AK Party and Erdoğan]
have committed many crimes. They have committed grave sins domestically and internationally, and
now there is the possibility that they may be tried at the ICC."
Former ECtHR judge says US-Nicaragua case sets precedent
Rıza Türmen, a former judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and one of Turkey's
leading expert in international law, told Today's Zaman that a powerful country like the United States
was in the past tried and found guilty by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of aiding and
abetting militants in the Central American country of Nicaragua, and that Turkey is no exception.
In 1984, the hitherto relatively unknown country of Nicaragua took the US to the ICJ on the ground
that it was responsible for illegal military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua
between 1981 and 1984.
In April 1981, US terminated aid to Nicaragua and in September 1981, according to Nicaragua, the
United States "decided to plan and undertake activities directed against Nicaragua."
The armed opposition to the new Nicaraguan government was mainly conducted by the Fuerza Democratica
Nicaragüense (FDN) and Alianza Revolucionaria Democratica (ARDE). Initial US support to these groups
fighting against the Nicaraguan government (called "contras") was covert.
"Turkey does not have the right to intervene in the affairs of another state. However, if the
trucks of weapons may be true, as the President [Erdoğan] said, then Turkey will have intervened
in the internal affairs of another country," Türmen said.
He added that the UN Security Council is able to initiate the investigations at the ICC, which
tries individuals who are charged with committing crime against humanity rather than countries, such
as the example with Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.
The former judge did note however that Turkey does not recognize the ICC and that it was very
unlikely for Erdoğan to be tried there, but added that even being uttered in the same breath as such
allegations would be enough to tarnish the reputation of any leader in the international forum.
Professor: Erdoğan hoped to lead bloc of countries from Tunisia to Syria
According to Baskın Oran, a professor at Ankara University's Faculty of Political Sciences, Erdoğan
hoped, after the Arab Spring revolts began in 2011, to lead a bloc of countries, ranging from Tunisia
to Syria, all headed by Islamist Muslim Brotherhood governments.
Oran wrote in a June article that when Erdoğan saw "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was blocking
this dream; [he] gave orders that arms were to be sent to opposition forces in Syria with the intent
of helping to topple Assad."
Oran stated that in sending those weapons, the Erdoğan government clearly violated the United
Nations General Assembly's Resolution 2,625 made on Oct. 24, 1970.
Resolution 2,625 clearly reads that "no State shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite
or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the
regime of another State."
Hariri Tribunal set up UN Security Council serves as reminder
In 2005 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1,595, to establish a commission
to assist Lebanese authorities in their investigation of the assassination of former Prime Minister
Refik Hariri in Beirut, which took place on Feb. 14, 2005.
Under the resolution, the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC)
was formed and investigated the assassination for four years, but was later superseded by the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), also referred to as the Hariri Tribunal, in March 2009.
The United Nations investigation initially implicated high-level Lebanese and Syrian security
officers in Hariri's killing, according to the online news portal gulfnews.com. Arrest warrants were
issued by the tribunal, demanding the arrests of four Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists.
JAY: It's crazy. There's an interview with Lyndon Johnson near the end of his presidency in the Vietnam
War, and he's asked, why do you keep continuing this? What is this about? And he actually, apparently,
pulls down his fly and brings out his organ--as this is how it's described by one of his biographers--and
he says, this is what it's about.
KIRIAKOU: I believe that story.
JAY: At the time, how much do you understand that's what it's about, that it's just a pissing match?
KIRIAKOU: I did understand it, and I grew frustrated with it. I grew frustrated with American policy
toward Iraq and decided I've got to do something completely different. And that's when I began looking
for new job.
JAY: Within the CIA
KIRIAKOU: Within the CIA
JAY: And you go to Greece.
KIRIAKOU: Well, there was a position advertised that called for either a Greek or Arabic speaker.
And it turned out that at the time--.
JAY: You know what? I'm sorry. I want to go back to where you said you can believe the Johnson story.
Alright. So you're a professional analyst. You're analyzing what's going on in Iraq, what should
be done. I mean, it sounds like you're coming to the conclusion, like, all of this is unnecessary
in terms of real U.S. national interest. You're saying this is essentially a pissing match. I mean,
and I don't think we should make that too banal. What I mean by that: it isn't just a personality
thing. I think ingrained in U.S. foreign policy is this, that we must make everyone believe we are
stronger than they are. And it's sort of like a loan shark. I said this in another interview. If
you let someone get away with not paying back their interest that week, then everyone else isn't
going to pay back. That's the theory. So you've got to break some knees, and if somebody's really
defiant, for that, for its own sake, you have to prove you can put that person in their place.
But, as an analyst, you can see this isn't good foreign policy.
KIRIAKOU: No, it was quite bad foreign policy. It was a waste of resources and people were getting
killed. But at the same time, it goes beyond the president and the State Department and the Defense
Department. You have congressional leaders hammering the president for being weak on Iraq and to
bomb more and to fight harder and to make sure that Saddam is humiliated. And so you have this spiral
of bad policy that you just can't get out of.
JAY: And how much do you think that for certain sectors of the economy--'cause it's certainly not
true for all of the economy, but if you're in fossil fuels or if you're in military production and
associated high tech, war's damn good for business.
KIRIAKOU: It is good for business. And when you think about it, though, if we--. Look at it this
way. We bought much, much more Libyan oil than we ever bought Iraqi oil. Iraqi oil mostly went to
Europe. And when Libya collapsed and their oil industry came to a screeching halt, it had virtually
no effect on our own economy. Virtually none. So did we really need to hammer the Iraqis like this
over more than a decade to protect the oil? We really didn't need the oil anyway.
JAY: But by fossil fuel I mean as long as there's conflict, the price of oil's high.
KIRIAKOU: Mhm. It stays high.
JAY: We know big oil companies make more money the higher the price of oil.
KIRIAKOU: That's right.
JAY: People selling arms, the more stuff you blow up, the more stuff you've got to buy to replace
it, and the more threat of conflict, the more--.
KIRIAKOU: Right. It's good for business.
JAY: How much do you think that drives U.S. foreign policy?
KIRIAKOU: I think that's an integral part of U.S. foreign policy. I really do. You know, we've got
not just arms manufacturers, but now we have drone manufacturers, for example, that are having to
compete against Israeli drones and Chinese drones and Russian drones. So we need for there to be
conflicts so we can sell our drones. It's the same with aircraft. You know, Boeing and other aircraft
manufacturers would go under if we couldn't sell F-15s and F-16s and F-whatever they are, 23s, the
new ones that are coming out, both for our own military and for foreign militaries. So war is good
for business.
JAY: I mean, if you're thinking of the current situation, the more potential conflict there is between
the Saudis and the Iranians, that's a gold mine If you're selling arms.
KIRIAKOU: Especially when the Saudis have a bottomless pit of money that they can dip into. The same
with the Qataris and the Emiratis. It's very lucrative for us to be in the Gulf.
JAY: Now, let's go back. As you're leaving, you go back to Arlington. You're back on the Iraq file.
You're starting to see how crazy all this stuff is. Are you starting to question now?
KIRIAKOU: Yeah, now I'm starting to get frustrated. This policy is broken, it's not working, and
there's no hope of changing it. So I decided to do something completely different.
JAY: Okay.
KIRIAKOU: And that was operations.
JAY: So--oh. Now you're going to leave analysis go to operations. Now, this to me sounds a little
contradictory. You're starting to see the pattern of some of the underlining rot of the policy, but
now you're going to go over to operations, where some of the dark stuff gets done.
KIRIAKOU: Yeah, but some of the dark stuff was meant to save and to protect American lives, and that's
really what I wanted to focus on.
I ended up going to Greece and spending two years in Greece. And my job in Greece was to try to disrupt
terrorist attacks committed by a group that was called Revolutionary Organization 17 November. 17
November had murdered the CIA station chief in Athens in 1975. They murdered two defense attaches.
They had shot and severely wounded several embassy officers. And they murdered an American Air Force
technical sergeant who was just--the poor guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And
they had murdered almost two dozen Greek nationals as well, important people--cabinet ministers,
the heads of the central bank, university professors, prominent business leaders. And I thought,
this is something I could sink my teeth into.
JAY: But when you decide to join ops, you don't know that's where you're going.
KIRIAKOU: Oh, yeah.
JAY: You do?
KIRIAKOU: Oh, yeah.
JAY: Oh, you know it's Greece.
KIRIAKOU: I applied specifically for that job.
JAY: And what's the training?
KIRIAKOU: It was all of the traditional operational training at--.
JAY: Tradecraft they call it. Is that right?
KIRIAKOU: Tradecraft, right,--
JAY: Yeah.
KIRIAKOU: --at a facility they call "the Farm", which is located south of here.
JAY: And how long is the training?
KIRIAKOU: Well, because I was midcareer, I didn't have to go through what they called CIA 101. So
I went straight into the shooting and the car crashing and the explosives training. And that lasted
four and a half months.
War tends to perpetuate itself. As soon as one brute gets killed, another takes his place; when the
new guy falls, another materializes.
Consider Richard Nixon's intensification of the American war on Cambodia. In hopes of maintaining
an advantage over the Communists as he withdrew American troops from Southeast Asia, Nixon ravaged
Vietnam's western neighbor with approximately
500,000 tons
of bombs between 1969 and 1973. But instead of destroying the Communist menace, these attempts
to buttress Nguyen Van Thieu's South Vietnamese government and then Lon Nol's Cambodian government
only transformed it. The bombings led many of Nixon's early targets to desert the eastern
region of the country in favor of Cambodia's interior where they organized with the Khmer Rouge.
As a CIA official noted in 1973, the Khmer Rouge started to
"us[e] damage
caused by B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda." By appealing to Cambodians who were
affected by the bombing raids, this brutal Communist organization, a peripheral batch of 10,000 fighters
in 1969, had expanded by 1973 into a formidable army with 20 times as many members. Two years later,
they seized control of Phnom Penh and murdered more than
one million of their compatriots in a grisly
genocide.
The following decade, when war erupted between the forces of Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the United States hedged its bets by providing military assistance to
both
governments as they slaughtered
hundreds of thousands
of people. But when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, ousted the emir, and ultimately assassinated about
1,000 Kuwaitis, the
United States turned on its former ally with an incursion that directly killed
3,500 innocent Iraqis and suffocated
100,000
others through the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure. The US also maintained an embargo against
Iraq throughout the 1990s, a program that contributed to the deaths of
500,000
Iraqis and that UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Dennis Halliday deemed "genocidal"
when he explained his 1998 resignation.
The newly restored Kuwaiti government, for its part, retaliated against minority groups for their
suspected "collaboration" with the Iraqi occupiers. The government threw Palestinians out of schools,
fired its Palestinian employees, and threatened thousands with "arbitrary
arrest, torture, rape, and murder." Beyond that, Kuwait interdicted the reentry of more than
150,000 Palestinians and tens of thousands of
Bedoons who had evacuatedKuwait when the tyrant Saddam took over. Thus, years of American maneuvering to achieve peace
and security – by playing Iran and Iraq off of each other, by privileging Kuwaiti authoritarians
over Iraqi authoritarians, by killing tens of thousands of innocent people who got in the way – failed.
The chase continues today as the United States targets the savage "Islamic State," another monster
that the West inadvertently
helped create by assisting foreign militants. History suggests that this war against Islamism,
if taken to its logical extreme, will prove to be an endless game of whack-a-mole. Yes, our government
can assassinate some terrorists; what it cannot do is stop aggrieved
civilian victims of Western bombings from replacing the dead by
becoming terrorists
themselves. Furthermore, even if ISIS disappeared tomorrow, there would still exist soldiers – in
Al-Qaeda, for instance – prepared to fill the void. That will remain true no matter how many bombs
the West drops, no matter how many weapons it tenders to foreign militias, no matter how many authoritarian
governments it buttresses in pursuit of "national security."
So, what are we to do when foreign antagonists, whatever the source of their discontent, urge
people to attack us? We should abandon the Sisyphean task of eradicating anti-American sentiments
abroad and invest in security at home. Gathering foreign intelligence is important when it allows
us to strengthen our defenses here, but bombing people in Iraq and Syria, enabling the Saudi
murder of
Yemenis, and deploying troops to
Cameroon are futile steps when enemy organizations can constantly replenish their supply of fighters
by propagandizing among natives who deplore Western intervention.
This understanding, though underappreciated in contemporary American government, reflects a noble
American tradition. John Quincy Adams, for his part, loved an America that "goes not abroad in
search of monsters to destroy." Decades later, Jeannette Rankin doubted the benefits of American
interventionism, contending that "you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
Martin Luther King Jr. warned that "violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem:
it merely creates new and more complicated ones." These leaders adamantly rejected an American politics
of unending aggressive war. It is time for us to do the same.
Tommy Raskin is a contributor to the Good Men Project and Foreign Policy in Focus.
...the country's tourist board has suspended all tours to Turkey, a move that it estimated would
cost the Turkish economy $10bn (£6.6bn). Russia also said it was suspending all military cooperation
with Turkey, including closing down an emergency hotline to share information on Russian airstrikes
in Syria.
Putin accused Turkey of deliberately trying to bring relations between Moscow and Ankara to a
standstill, adding that Moscow was still awaiting an apology or an offer of reimbursement for damages.
He earlier called the act a "stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and promised "serious
consequences"
... ... ...
Russia has insisted that its plane never strayed from Syrian airspace, while Turkey says it crossed
into its airspace for 17 seconds. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that even if
this was the case, shooting the plane down was an extreme over-reaction and looked like a pre-planned
provocation.
Trucks carrying Turkish products on international routes have been facing numerous
obstacles encouraged by
Russia over the four days since
Turkey shot down a Russian jet, and many drivers are waiting in long lines to
enter Russia at border crossings in Ukraine and Georgia.
"Earlier, Russian
custom officials used to take samples from each truck and let them cross the border
but now they have halted all entrances saying that they need to check the whole load
even though no inspection has been underway since Tuesday," said Fatih Şener, the
executive president of the İstanbul-based International Transporters' Association
(UND).
Turkish and international media reported after the outbreak of the crisis that
Russia immediately launched economic retaliatory steps on its southern border after
Turkey's military shot down a Russian fighter near the country's Syrian border.
Official statements from Russia revealed that joint economic projects had been placed
under risk while many Turkey-bound tourism ventures were cancelled. Amid such
restrictions, product transporters have been complaining of the new barriers they
have been facing for the past three days. On Friday, Turkish lira hit 2.9345 versus
the US dollar, its lowest since Oct. 29.
"I need to underline that barriers are being imposed not only on Turkish trucks
but also on Bulgarians and others that carry Turkish products to Russia," Şener
added.
Explaining that most of the trucks were loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables,
Şener said exported machinery products that had been on their way to Russia, were
also hampered.
But the Kremlin has said it will not impose official sanctions on Turkish
products, a statement that Şener said the UND was pinning all its hopes on, adding
that he hopes the barriers will not be here to stay in the long-term.
Tension threatens $1 bln worth in produce exports
Of the $2.3 billion in fresh fruit and vegetable exports of Turkey in 2014,
Russia-bound sales made up 40 percent of the total, or roughly $1 billion. Turkey
mostly exports tomatoes, citrus fruits, grapes, pomegranates and cherries to its
northern neighbor.
"I don't want to predict disaster but the situation is very gloomy," Hasan Yılmaz,
the head of Aegean Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Exporter Unions told the Cihan news
agency.
Cihan also reported on Friday that exporters of produce in the southern province
of Antalya, who conducted sales worth around $350 million to Russia in 2014, resorted
to releasing their goods on the domestic market.
Necati Zengin, a representative at the Antalya-based Kalyoncu Group, a giant
exporter company that used to send around a hundred truckloads of produce to Russia
via its seven to eight freighters before the crisis, reportedly said all his trucks
are now waiting idle at Russian borders. "It is hard to calculate the losses given
that a truck is loaded with some $45,000 worth of goods a day," Zengin said.
Great post up at Moon of Alabama on the possibility of American involvement in this caper
– James Winnefeld, the deputy chief of General Staff of the U.S. military, was in Ankara when
the incident occurred. Although it appeared yesterday to have been Erdogan acting on his own,
who knows? If he was persuaded into it, you can chalk up another country that will be an
avowed enemy of the USA before a year is out, because it is the Turks who will pay for it in
lost revenue and economic reprisals. I agree with a lot of B's conclusions as well.
Americans played on Erdogan's Islamist streak and flattered the regional ambitions of
this "sick man of Europe". Under Erdie's incompetent rule, Turkey has become just another two-bit goon to put into
play against Russia. Americans sub-contracted out to Erdogan, to control other Turk-based "goon franchises" such
as Djemiliev's fake "Crimean Tatars", Chechen "Caliphate" types such as Osmaev, some
Azerbaijani types, and obviously the "Turkmen" sub-brigades of ISIS. Erdogan is the designated "Team Leader" for all of these dubious elements. Erdogan himself reports back to the "big guy",
shown here
pardoning a Turkey owned by a certain Dr. Jihad. Coincidence? I think not!
Thanks for the link and great post! Outside of science and other non-politicized parts
of academia, all these academics are regime bootlicks. One such "academic" is Nina
Khruscheva. They all spew intellectually insulting drivel.
Beautiful article Mark! I completely agree with it. Of note:
1. The Turkmen on the Syrian side of the border, who enjoy Erdogan's protection and
intervention, machine-gunned the Russian fighter's pilot and navigator while they were hanging
in their parachutes, falling from the sky. Is that a war crime? You bet it is. 2. This knee-jerk defense of a lying shitbag like Erdogan is why Russians are grim and filled
with resolve. 3. Lavrov likely does have a point, and the Turks were probably lying in ambush for a Russian
plane. 4. [The] official response from Washington was that Turkey has a right to defend its territory
and its air space, and President Obama blamed the incident on "an ongoing problem with Russian
operations near the Turkish border."
These are the reasons why Russia is going to overreact. Add to this that the EU, at the
behest of Obama, the only political national leader who didn't offer condolences to Russia
after ISIS bombed a Russian civilian plane, imposed sanctions on Russia over an accidental
shooting, that Erdogan's been excessively aggressive, and that Russia is just sick and tired
of being treated without any respect by the same elites that back Erdogan, it's no surprise
that Erdogan will be hit hard from all directions. The economic damages from the tourism
market alone is going to be at least $9 billion. Turkish Stream is probably going to be
cancelled, as will generous loans. I'm surprised that there's no official break off in
relations just yet, but I think that's also coming. And if Erdogan goes into Syria, well, then
it gets interesting.
A Syrian rebel commander who boasted of killing a Russian pilot after Turkey downed Russian jet on
Tuesday appeared to be Turkish ultranationalist and a son of former mayor in one of Turkish provinces.
Alparslan Celik, deputy commander of a Syrian Turkmen brigade turned out to be the son of a mayor
of a Keban municipality in Turkey's Elazig province.
He also turned out to be the member of The Grey Wolves ultranationalist group, members of which
have carried out scores of political murders since 1970s.
Celik came under spotlight after he announced that as the two Russian pilots descended by parachute
after the Su-24 jet was downed by Turkish military, both were shot dead by Turkmen forces on Tuesday.
A graphic video posted earlier on social media purported to show a Russian pilot lying on the
ground surrounded by a group of armed militants.
"... Both aircraft remained in the area for 34 minutes. During this time there was no contact between the crews of the Russian bombers and the Turkish military authorities or warplanes. ..."
"... Commander Bondarev noted that a pair of Turkish F-16Cs had been in the area close to the attack zone for more than an hour prior to the attack, which explains their presence in the area. The time needed to get the aircraft ready at the Diyarbak r airfield and travel to the attack zone is an estimated 46 minutes. ..."
"... One of Turkish F-16Cs stopped its maneuvers and began to approach the Su-24M bomber about 100 seconds before the Russian aircraft came closest to the Turkish border, which also confirms the attack was pre-planned, Commander Bondarev stressed. ..."
"... The chief of Russia's Air Force also called attention to the readiness of the Turkish media, which released a professionally-made video of the incident recorded from an area controlled by extremists a mere 1.5 hours after the Su-24 was downed. ..."
"... The Turkish military not only violated all international laws on protecting national borders, but never delivered an apology for the incident or offered any help in the search and rescue operation for the Su-24 crew. ..."
Get short
URL
A Turkish fighter jet launched a missile at a Russian bomber on
Tuesday well ahead of the Su-24 approaching the Turkish border, the
chief of Russia's Air Force said. The bomber remained on Turkish
radars for 34 minutes and never received any warnings.
TrendsSu-24
downing
The attack on the Russian Su-24 bomber was intentional and had been
planned in advance, Viktor Bondarev, the chief of Russia's Air Force,
announced Friday, calling the incident an "unprecedented
backstab."
The commander shared with the media previously unknown details of
what happened on Tuesday.
On November 24, a pair of Russian Sukhoi Su-24 tactical bombers
took off from Khmeimim airbase in Latakia at 06:15 GMT, with an
assignment to carry out airstrikes in the vicinity of the settlements
of Kepir, Mortlu and Zahia, all in the north of Syria. Each bomber was
carrying four OFAB-250 high-explosive fragmentation bombs.
Ten minutes later, the bombers entered the range of Turkish radars
and took positions in the target area, patrolling airspace at
predetermined heights of 5,800 meters and 5,650 meters respectively.
Both aircraft remained in the area for 34 minutes. During this
time there was no contact between the crews of the Russian bombers and
the Turkish military authorities or warplanes.
Some 20 minutes after arriving at the designated area, the crews
received the coordinates of groups of terrorists in the region. After
making a first run, the bombers performed a maneuver and then
delivered a second strike.
Immediately after that, the bomber crewed by Lieutenant-Colonel
Oleg Peshkov and Captain Konstantin Murakhtin was attacked by a
Turkish F-16 fighter jet operating from the Diyarbakır airfield in
Turkey.
To attack the Russian bomber with a close-range air-to-air missile,
the Turkish fighter jet had to enter Syrian airspace, where it
remained for about 40 seconds. Having launched its missile from a
distance of 5-7 kilometers, the F-16 immediately turned towards the
Turkish border, simultaneously dropping its altitude sharply, thus
disappearing from the range of Russian radars at the Khmeimim airbase.
The Turkish fighter moved two kilometers into Syrian airspace while
the Russian bomber at no stage violated Turkish airspace, Bondarev
stressed.
The crew of the second Su-24M had a clear view of the moment the
missile was fired from the Turkish F-16, and reported this to base.
Commander Bondarev noted that a pair of Turkish F-16Cs had been
in the area close to the attack zone for more than an hour prior to
the attack, which explains their presence in the area. The time needed
to get the aircraft ready at the Diyarbakır airfield and travel to the
attack zone is an estimated 46 minutes.
One of Turkish F-16Cs stopped its maneuvers and began to
approach the Su-24M bomber about 100 seconds before the Russian
aircraft came closest to the Turkish border, which also confirms the
attack was pre-planned, Commander Bondarev stressed.
The chief of Russia's Air Force also called attention to the
readiness of the Turkish media, which released a professionally-made
video of the incident recorded from an area controlled by extremists a
mere 1.5 hours after the Su-24 was downed.
Commander Bondarev also mentioned the memorandum of understanding
regarding the campaign in Syria, signed by Moscow and Washington on
October 26. In accordance with this agreement, the Russian side
informed its American counterparts about the mission of the two
bombers in the north of Syria on November 24, including the zones and
heights of operation.
Taking this into account, the Turkish authorities' statement on not
knowing which aircraft were operating in the area raises eyebrows,
Bondarev said.
The Turkish military not only violated all international laws
on protecting national borders, but never delivered an apology for the
incident or offered any help in the search and rescue operation for
the Su-24 crew.
The Su-24's pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Peshkov, was shot dead
by militants while parachuting to the ground, having ejected from the
stricken aircraft. His partner, navigator Captain Konstantin Murakhtin,
survived being shot at while parachuting and managed to stay alive on
the ground in an area full of terrorists.
The rescue operation took several hours and eventually recovered
Murakhtin, although one Russian Marine in the team was killed when the
rescue helicopter was destroyed by a US-made tank missile launched by
the extremists – an incident they filmed and published online.
Commander Bondarev specifically stressed that the Russian pilot who
survived the attack was actively looked for not only by the jihadists,
but also by a number of unidentified and technically well-equipped
groups.
After Captain Murakhtin was rescued, the Russian Air Force
delivered "more than massive, devastating" airstrikes against
the militants in the region where the operation had been taking place,
Bondarev reported.
It is hard to imagine that the Turkish government is unaware of oil supplies to Turkey from
areas controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, Russian President
Vladimir Putin said on Friday after talks with French leader Francois Hollande.
Putin used the opportunity of the joint news conference with Hollande to repeat his accusations
against Turkey of turning a blind eye to oil smuggling by ISIL. He said it was "theoretically
possible" that Ankara was unaware of oil supplies entering its territory from ISIL-controlled
areas of Syria but added that this was hard to imagine.
He also said that the shooting down by Turkey of a Russian jet was an act of betrayal by a
country Russia considered to be its friend.
"... Turkeys economy will grow only under 3 percent this year, below the governments target, weighed down by political uncertainty at home and conflict in the Middle East. ..."
"... There are also a whole range of deals, investments and commercial relationships that could be threatened in the fallout from the downing of the Russian jet. ..."
"... Tourism is already being hit. After Russian officials on Tuesday advised holidaymakers against traveling to Turkish resorts ..."
Moscow made public a series of economic retaliation steps against
Turkey on Thursday, after efforts to defuse tensions between Ankara and Moscow over the downing
of a
Russian jet fighter on Tuesday failed to pay off.
Russia said on Thursday it may impose
various economic restrictions on Turkey, including measures to restrict the planned TurkStream gas
pipeline, ending cooperation in building Turkey's first nuclear plant and limiting civilian flights
to and from Turkey. Such moves would heap serious pain on either Turkey or Russia, both of which
are already struggling economically, experts agree.
Russia said on Thursday it would be looking to cut
economic ties with Turkey and scrap investment projects in a matter of days in the aftermath
of the Turkish downing of a Russian warplane. The televised statement by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev
came a day after Russian media reported hundreds of trucks bringing Turkish goods stranded at the
border. Medvedev ordered the Russian government to draw up measures that would include freezing some
joint investment projects with Turkey, in retaliation for the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey.
He also told a meeting of Cabinet ministers on Thursday that the measures would include restrictions
on food imports from Turkey.
Shortly after Medvedev, Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said on Thursday that the restrictions
against Ankara may include the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which is currently under construction
in the southern province of Mersin in Turkey. He said the restrictions, drawn up in retaliation for
the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey, may also include limits to civil flights to and from
Turkey and a halt to preparations for a Free Trade Zone. Moscow will also halt the creation of a
single Turkish-Russian investment fund, Ulyukayev added. Meanwhile, cooperation between Russia and
Turkey in tourism will "obviously" be halted, the head of Russia's tourism agency, Rostourism, said
on Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported. Separately on Thursday, local authorities in Crimea
also said a dozen of planned Turkish investment projects in the region were cancelled.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, however, on Thursday dismissed as "emotional" and "unfitting of
politicians" the suggestions that projects with Russia could be canceled.
Turkish stocks fell more than 2 percent while the lira weakened to above 2.9 against the US dollar
on Thursday.
Crackdown on Turkish food imports
Russia has increased checks on food and agriculture imports from Turkey, its Agriculture Ministry
said on Thursday, in the first public move to curb trade in a dispute with Ankara for downing a Russian
fighter jet.
The government told food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor to increase controls after Agriculture
Ministry research showed about 15 percent of agriculture imports from Turkey did not meet regulations,
the ministry said.
Rosselkhoznadzor normally only checks some food deliveries. The decision to start checking all
supplies from Turkey means that while imports will continue, they could be significantly delayed.
Moscow often uses Rosselkhoznadzor regulations in diplomatic spats, imposing bans on imports of certain
products, citing health reasons. Officials deny the agency's actions are politically driven.
Moscow banned most Western food imports in 2014 when Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia
over its role in the Ukraine crisis.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday the government was not planning to
impose any embargo on Turkish imports. Turkey accounts for about 4 percent of Russia's total food
imports, supplying mainly fruits, nuts and vegetables. Agricultural and food product imports from
Turkey were worth $1 billion in the first 10 months of 2015, according to customs data. But 20 percent
of Russia's vegetables come from Turkey.
Russian Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev said any shortfall could be made up with supplies
from Iran, Morocco, Israel and Azerbaijan. Citrus imports could come from South Africa, Morocco,
China and other countries if necessary, he said in a statement. Russia's biggest food retailer Magnit
said it was still buying fruits and vegetables from Turkey and declined to provide further comment.
Food retailer Dixy said it would do its best to find other suppliers if needed.
Russian retailers were forced to find new suppliers in 2014 after Russia banned most Western food
imports.
Fragile economies
Russia's economy will shrink around 4 percent this year from the combined effects of the low oil
price and sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.
Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian state-owned bank VTB, told reporters at a forum in the Russian
city of Yekaterinburg that politics and economics should be kept separate. "I would not be inclined
to whip up the situation right now," he said, adding: "I think that one has to approach this very
calmly. There are always negative events going on in the world."
Meanwhile, Turkey's economy will grow only under 3 percent this year, below the government's
target, weighed down by political uncertainty at home and conflict in the Middle East. "Erdoğan
is a tough character, and quite emotional, and if Russia pushes too far in terms of retaliatory action,
I think there will inevitably be a counter reaction from Turkey [like] tit-for-tat trade sanctions,"
Nomura strategist Timothy Ash wrote in a note. "But I think there is also a clear understanding that
any such action is damaging for both sides, and unwelcome."
There are also a whole range of deals, investments and commercial relationships that could
be threatened in the fallout from the downing of the Russian jet.
Russia's state Atomic Energy Corporation, known as Rosatom, is due to build Turkey's first nuclear
power station, a $20 billion project. Rosatom said it has no comment on the issue.
Shares in Turkish firm Enka İnşaat, which has construction projects in Russia and two power plants
in Turkey using Russian gas, fell for a second day on Wednesday. Turkish brewer Anadolu Efes, which
has six breweries in Russia and controls around 14 percent of the market, also saw its shares fall
on Tuesday.
Tourism is already being hit. After Russian officials on Tuesday advised holidaymakers against
traveling to Turkish resorts, at least two large Russian tour operators said they would stop
selling packages to Turkey. Russians are second only to Germans in terms of the numbers visiting
Turkey, bringing in an estimated $4 billion a year in tourism revenues.
"... Oh, Turkey is in a lot of trouble, but this country essentially committed succeed de and I cannot fathom the lack of decent press coverage on that fact. First, Turkey's account of a 17 second overflight of Turkish airspace is mathematically impossible. Worse, Russian, in an attempt to cooperate with the Obama White House, released details of the flight path of that Russian plane to the Turks. Someone in the US government told Turkey exactly when and where that plane would be and Turkey, shot it down for them. WikiLeaks attributes this madness directly to Obama. ..."
"... Claiming Russia gave flight information to the US and therefore Turkey (isn't this a real coalition, he asks, mockingly?) further exacerbates one tension in this complex matrix of relations. ..."
"... President Bush said Saddam must go! That led to a catastrophe in Iraq with unfathomable losses on all sides. President Obama said Assad must go! Now we another catastrophe evolving in Syria and it's neighbors. ..."
"... This superficial assessment of things fails to capture the great gravity of the current situation caused by Turkey's foolish crime. ..."
"... It also reveals that Turkey sides with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, the same ones who blew up a filled Russian plane just a few weeks ago. ..."
"... The decision to down the Russian plane regardless of whether it was in Turkish airspace for 20 seconds or not, was a major error on the part of Erdogan. He is rapidly losing what few friends in the West and the Middle East he may ever have had. The Turks were doing OK before this guy came on the scene. ..."
"... Obama was in Turkey one week before this incident. His remarks following the incident implicitly threatened Russia with more of the same. It is unlikely that Erdogan would have taken such a step without the support of his buddy Obama. ..."
"... Erdogan is trying to calm the storm and hold France 24 television: "We might have been able to prevent this violation of our airspace differently." ..."
"... Perhaps he realises that Ankara might have over-reacted. Turkish airforce could have fired warning shots, without hitting the plane. It was essential to remind Russia of violating Turkish air-space, although Russian planes are not a direct threat to Turkey. ..."
"... Turkey staged a provocation with full knowledge of where and when this Russian airplane will be. And after that NATO fully supported their member. I wonder why Russia sees NATO as threat. The message is loud and clear - NATO countries may provoke Russia under the protection of the allies. ..."
"One gets the impression that the Turkish leaders are deliberately
leading Russian-Turkish relations into a gridlock," Mr. Putin said, adding later in the day:
"Turkey was our friend, almost an ally, and it is a shame that this was destroyed in such a
foolish manner."
... ... ...
During a news conference with Mr. Hollande late Thursday, Mr. Putin
suggested that the United States, an ally of Turkey, was responsible for the fate of its
warplane, since Moscow had passed on information about where and when its bombers would fly.
"What did we give this information to the Americans for?" Mr. Putin asked, rhetorically, before
adding: "We proceed from the assumption that it will never happen again. Otherwise we don't need
any such cooperation with any country."
... ... ...
Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, objected to the failure of
Turkish or NATO officials to offer condolences over the two Russian military men who died after
the plane was shot down. She also demanded an explanation from Turkey about the death of the
pilot, who was killed after he parachuted from the plane. It is believed he was shot by Turkmen
insurgents who live along the border on the Syrian side and who are supported by Ankara.
... ... ...
Hundreds of trucks bearing Turkish fruits, vegetables and other products were lining up at the
Georgian border with Russia, Russian news media reported, as inspections slowed to a crawl and
Russian officials suggested there might be a terrorist threat from the goods.
"This is only natural in light of Turkey's unpredictable actions," Dmitri S. Peskov, the
presidential spokesman, told reporters.
jamil simaan, Boston
If you compare Russia as a whole today to a person reacting to unexpected slights and/or
attacks from people they used to trust, I don't think its response would seem irrational.
Russia will definitely take an economic hit for applying sanctions to Turkey, but who respects
a person who always prioritizes making money over self-respect? The way Turkey took down this
jet made it all but impossible for Russia not to respond very aggressively because the Russian
military has quickly become a moral pillar of Russian society, where the economy is flagging
and politics stagnant. What did they expect Russia to do, just take it?
No matter how you slice it, though, Turkey's behavior has been much much worse for Turkey than
anybody else. The American perspective is pretty pragmatic, and I'm sure a lot of people in
the Obama administration are thinking they'd be pretty angry, too, if that happened to the US.
It appears that behind closed doors the American and NATO leadership is not happy with Turkey,
especially Erdogan. It couldn't be clearer right now how little any other NATO country would
like to go to war for Turkey, especially when it is doing stupid things like this.
Wandering Jew, Israel 1 hour ago
It was reckless and dangerous move on the part of Turkey as a member of NATO. There was no
reason to escalate the already sensitive situation shooting down Russian plane that was no
real threat for Turkey's security.
Erdogan is more dangerous as a partner than he is as an enemy.
ngop, halifax, canada 4 hours ago
Erdogan is hardly in a position to criticize Russia for violating Turkish airspace (for all
of 20 seconds at most) when his forces routinely do much worse things in Syria. His
unconscionable and indiscriminate bombing of Kurds, both in Turkey and Syria, as well as doing
everything possible to dislodge Assad has the objective result of helping the Islamic State.
And speaking of territorial integrity, let's not forget about the forty years of illegal
Turkish occupation of Cypress. With friends like Erdogan and his Saudi mentors, we don't need
any enemies.
courther, USA 3 hours ago
Can we bottom line this situation? Turkey has really messed up by not only shooting down
the bomber but killing the Russian pilot while he was in his parachute floating to the ground.
I guess the barbaric Turkmen didn't realize that they were violating the Geneva Convention
when they shot the pilot.
The US has also messed up when Russia gave the US its flight plan for the bombers in which the
US apparently shared with Turkey. Both the US and Turkey have now backed themselves into a
corner with Russia in Syria.
Putin has ordered the S-400 anti-missile defense system to be located 30 miles from the border
of Turkey. The S-400 is one of the most advanced anti-missile systems in the world. The US
military doesn't have an answer for this powerful and precise anti-defense system. The system
is designed to target and destroy 75 targets simultaneously. This include Tomahawks missiles,
stealth fighter planes such as the F-22 and the F-35 fighter jets. The system is accurate and
precise. It doesn't miss its target. It is fully effective within a 250 miles radius.
Here is where most of you missed the point. With this type of weapon Putin can establish a
no-fly zone in Syria and any plane that violate Syrian airspace can be shot down and there is
nothing NATO or the US can do because of international law. Russia is a legitimate ally to
Syria and can act on Syria's behalf. Whoever let Turkey join NATO messed up.
Julien, Canada
Turkey Violated only Greek Airspace 2,244 Times Last Year!!! Not to mention vialation of
other countries.
A formation of Turkish fighter jets violated Greek airspace a total of 20 times!!! in a sigle
day engaging in dogfight with Greek defenders. Clear provocation.
http://www.businessinsider.com/turkish-and-greek-jets-engaged-in-dogfigh...
Moreover when Syrian air defence downed Turkish F-4 Phantom, as a reaction Erdogan said in
2012: "Brief Airspace Violations Can't Be Pretext for Attack".
I let you decide what you think about it.
Paul, Virginia 3 hours ago
Considering the facts that both the US and Russia are nuclear powers and that Turkey is a
member of NATO requiring NATO to go to war if Turkey was attacked, Turkey's shooting down the
Russian jet and calling for an emergency NATO meeting was at the height of irresponsibility
and recklessness and stupidity. The tepid reaction from the US and NATO indicates that Turkey
was acting alone or without explicit consent from NATO. Russia's reaction so far has been
confined to trade and tourism but Russia will surely and shortly begin to take actions that
will intimidate Turkey short of an outright military attack, which will again raise at worst
verbal tension with NATO for NATO will not risk a war with Russia over Turkey's behavior. It's
overdue for the US and NATO to assess and downgrade alliance with Turkey.
Simon, Tampa 3 hours ago
I just hope that Putin takes revenge on Turkey, the Saudis, and other Gulf States by having
the FSB leak to the media all the evidence that they are the ones financially supporting ISIS
and Al Qaeda. This will embarrass our government, the French and other European countries
doing business with them as they support terrorists who kill their citizens. Hollande wants to
stop ISIS, then he should do stop doing business with these countries and call for
international sanctions against them until they stop their indefensible behavior.
Knorrfleat Wringbladt, Midwest 3 hours ago
Turkey is lying in their effort to support Daesh and appropriate Syian territory. As the
conflict worsens Turkey hopes to gain through suppression of its own citizens (Kurds) as well
as stealing resources from surrounding weakened states. The fact that their strategy may cause
serious setbacks for Western Civilization is an added bonus.
The West is foolish to ally themselves with a nation that for thousands of years has been the
pivot between east and west. Turkey has learned to play both sides against each other. We need
to do an end run apology to Russia (on Turkeys behalf), severely sanction Turkey for their non
cooperation or kick them out of NATO altogether. If we do nothing they will continue to
undermine us.
Mike Brooks, Eugene, Oregon 5 hours ago
Oh, Turkey is in a lot of trouble, but this country essentially committed succeed de
and I cannot fathom the lack of decent press coverage on that fact. First, Turkey's account of
a 17 second overflight of Turkish airspace is mathematically impossible. Worse, Russian, in an
attempt to cooperate with the Obama White House, released details of the flight path of that
Russian plane to the Turks. Someone in the US government told Turkey exactly when and where
that plane would be and Turkey, shot it down for them. WikiLeaks attributes this madness
directly to Obama.
Hamid Varzi, Spain 3 hours ago
Let us view the world, for as second, from an Iranian and Russian perspective:
The U.S. directly caused the rise of Islamic Extremism with 60 years of oppressive
geopolitical policies in the Middle East. The U.S.'s current allies in the "War on Terror" are
Wahhabi-infested Saudi Arabia, Palestine-baiting Israel, increasingly regressive Turkey and Al
Qaeda refuge Pakistan. (Instead of focusing on the 50 nuclear weapons that already exist in
the nation that created and supported the Taleban, the U.S. is focused on the nuclear
programme of Iran that helped it defeat the Taleban in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11!).
Having seen the disastrous results of removing Middle Eastern dictators in Iraq and Libya, the
West has now decided to remove the dictator in Syria, but in the expectation of different
results.
All the while, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey are laughing their heads off at the discomfort
faced by Iran and Russia as a result of crashing oil prices, seemingly ignorant of the far
greater threat to their own security posed by the so-called Islamic State. The West, like deer
caught in the Saudi, Israeli and Turkish headlights, has become paralyzed and has become easy
pickings for radical Islamists, as we saw recently and tragically in Paris.
The West must realize it has become the victim of its own policies: It must urgently
reappraise its geopolitical strategies by tackling Islamic Extremism at the source.
Tom, Fl Retired Junk Man 3 hours ago
Turkey is way out of line with their actions, they should apologize immeadiately and never
be so foolish as to play with people's lives as though they were chess pieces.
This is not a game, if you screw with Russia there will be a strong response, and it is so
unneccesary.
The Obama administration has messed up this relationship with Russia, that stupid reset button
that Hillary presented to the Russian's should be reset again.
You get a lot more of a result with honey than with vinegar, and don't forget " Bears like
Honey ".
So leave that Russian Bear alone.
This is news? Eugene, OR
Ignore Putin's pleas of outrage in this instance. This is about something other than a lost
Russian pilot.
It is all about driving a wedge among NATO members, most specifically France and others
inclined to cooperate with Putin in Syria, both practically and in terms of optics, and
Turkey.
European-Turkish relations were already strained (human rights, Turkey abetting fighters
travelling to join Daesh, rifts over the Kurds, failure to make progress on EU membership, and
on) and Putin, believing he is needed by the West newly-energized to attack Daesh, is pressing
on the sore point. He knows, for instance, that Turkey is 1) absolutely committed to Assad
succession and 2) unwilling to see anything that doesn't hurt the Kurds develop.
With France leading Europe closer to Putin, the previous Western insistence on Assad leaving
is weakening (for better or worse), giving way to the desire for tighter coop with Russia.
Putin is framing this diplomatically as the only "serious" way to combat Daesh, putting Europe
and Turkey increasingly on opposite sides of the Assad question in the short-term.
Claiming Russia gave flight information to the US and therefore Turkey (isn't this a real
coalition, he asks, mockingly?) further exacerbates one tension in this complex matrix of
relations.
Unlike Republicans I do not see Putin as some master strategist but this play is reasonably
smart if transparently obvious.
Concerned. Michigan 2 hours ago
Plain and simple.
The only way ISIS criminals can get in and out of Syria is through Turkey. Why is it so
hard to see how complacent are the Turks in allowing free access for these thugs in and out of
Syria? It is high time for the world to confront the obvious. The Saudis and Qataris with
their financial might have lobbied the Turks and the rest of the world to allow this to go on.
Isis existence depends on human flow and money supply from gulf Arab donors and its oil trade
through the Turkish border, address these main issues and Isis will be easier to defeat....
Dr. MB, Irvine, CA 4 hours ago
In the land of the Great Atarturk, this gentleman Mr. Erdogan does not fit in! Nations
suffer when cynical persons wiggle into power, Turkey will not be an exception, unfortunately!
Barrie F. Taylor, Miami, Florida 4 hours ago
I was born in 1939 and have always been optimistic that war would eventually disappear
after WW2 as a method for resolution of disputes between humans. Also I never thought that a
nuclear war was likely to happen. The current state of discord in the world is astounding when
one considers what we know about our world and existence. Religion should have died out by now
but there are still ignorant people who still believe in God and immortality! Warfare and
violence only beget violence and warfare - that should clear to anyone. Clearly our
educational systems have failed.
As for warfare, it is always the average people who pay the price not our "leaders" who keep
well out of harms way. They no longer lead the cavalry charge.
The West should keep out of the Middle East and let them resolve their problems - we've
already messed up the area with colonialism , and that includes the US. The most important
problem is the is a real likelihood of nuclear conflict due the abundance of nuclear weapons
in the region. Because of the lunacy of religion this is probably bound to happen sometime
soon.
NY 4 hours ago
The only way to ease the tensions is that Erdogan offers an apology to the Russian people
and pays for the damage of the fighter Jet and compensation to the Pilots family. Bar the
above he and the Turks will pay a much bigger price.
I would not be surprised if a Turkish F-16 or two being shot down in the future. Erdogan do
the smart thing go down on your knees and apologize.
Byron Jones, Memphis, Tennessee 4 hours ago
Points to ponder
1. The Russian jet was in Turkish airspace for a few seconds in face of Turkish allegations
that the pilots were warned for several minutes in advance.
2. Why shoot down the jet when a strong, morally outraged response from the Turks would play
better internationally?
3. Both Putin and Erdogan have problems at home and there is a long history of bad blood
between the two countries.
Putin and Erdogan -- two bullies playing a dangerous game of chicken.
Sridhar Chilimuri, New York 2 hours ago
What a mess!
President Bush said Saddam must go! That led to a catastrophe in Iraq with unfathomable
losses on all sides. President Obama said Assad must go! Now we another catastrophe evolving
in Syria and it's neighbors.
There is lesson for us to learn. We or any other country should not be participating in
leadership changes of other countries - let their people do it!
MN, New York 1 hour ago
Russia had a choice between Assad and Turkey and they chose Assad. They started bullying
Turkey repeatedly since their campaign in Syria begun, they went as far as putting eight
Turkish F-16s under radar lock by both MiG-29 and anti-aircraft missiles in October. They also
specifically targeted Turkmen villages and Turkey backed rebels on Syrian-Turkish borders
since October. The list of provocation goes on and on. The Russian ambassador was summoned by
Turkey at least 5 times since Russia started its campaign in Syria. Turkey complained to UN
more than one time too about Russia.
So if you think Russia has not been asking for this, you're wrong. It's exactly what Russia
wants. The provocation started by Russia and Turkey was patient with Russia until they started
to bomb the Turkmen. Despite Turkey's effort to de-escalate after the incident, Russia has cut
economic ties and the Kremlin even rejected a request to Putin-Erdogan meeting in upcoming
Paris convention. Russia continued their path of further provocation by intensifying air
strikes on every single Syrian-Turkish border held by Syrian rebels and on Turkmen villages.
They even started giving air support to Kurd's PYD in their new push against Syrian rebels.
Turkey on the other hand is under pressure to respond to Russia provocation especially by
nationalists who voted to the AKP government for the first time instead of their preferred
extreme nationalist MHP party.
ZHR, NYC 2 hours ago
Turkey is not very accurate. Last week Turkish nationalists -- no doubt at the behest of
the Erdouan government--protested Russian air strikes in Syria in front of the Dutch
Consulate. They got the wrong consulate.
In July, it was reported that Turkish "demonstrators angry about the Chinese government's
treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority attacked a Chinese restaurant. It turned out to be
owned by a Turk, and worse still the chef was in fact an Uighur Muslim."
Don't blame the Turks. They probably thought they were downing a Bulgarian plane or maybe
one from Lichtenstein.
Syed Abbas, Dearborn MI 4 hours ago
What Russia could not do in 70 years, ISIL has done in 1. Break up NATO.
Now, it is France, Russia, Germany Iran against Turkey, US, and ISIL, a conflict that will go
on for the rest of the century.
Today, it is not the end, but beginning of the end.
Buckeye, Ohio 1 hour ago
This superficial assessment of things fails to capture the great gravity of the current
situation caused by Turkey's foolish crime. This is the first time in over 50 years in
which a NATO force attacked and destroyed a Soviet/Russian military target with fatal
consequences. This reckless military aggression by Turkey deserves the condemnation, to
support, of the USA and all other NATO countries.
It also reveals that Turkey sides with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, the same ones who
blew up a filled Russian plane just a few weeks ago. The most rational outcome of this
criminal act of war by Turkey is to expel it from NATO which needs to join the Syrian
government in annihilating the Daesh terrorists, their roots and current sources of support.
Tragically, rationality does not guide the US verbal war on the Daesh terrorists, who, like
it, still has regime change in Syria as their irrational goal.
Kosovo, Louisville, KY 2 hours ago
I'm with the Russians, the Turks are double dealing. They support ISIS and are becoming
more of an Islamic state themselves...
Simon Sez, Maryland 2 hours ago
Turkey is being relentlessly pulled deeper and deeper into the morass of Islamism from
which there is no return.
Ironic that all that Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern, secular Turkey, fought for is now
being undone by Erdogan, an Islamic dictator who will brook no dissent.
While Putin is no saint, quite the opposite, his response is less aggressive than it might be.
Many Russian nationalists, and there are a lot of them, are loudly criticizing him for not
responding more forcefully to the downing of the Russian plane and murder of one of the
survivors.
Turkey is going to lose more than Russia from all of this.
The decision to down the Russian plane regardless of whether it was in Turkish airspace
for 20 seconds or not, was a major error on the part of Erdogan. He is rapidly losing what few
friends in the West and the Middle East he may ever have had. The Turks were doing OK before
this guy came on the scene.
Moral of the story: Be careful when you tangle with the Russian Bear.
Especially, when it is wearing the mask of Putin.
Victor O, NYC 2 hours ago
Obama was in Turkey one week before this incident. His remarks following the incident
implicitly threatened Russia with more of the same. It is unlikely that Erdogan would have
taken such a step without the support of his buddy Obama.
Does the U.S. truly wish to be drawn into a showdown with Russia? While it may be true that
Russia is outclassed when it comes to conventional arms, Russia will resort to nuclear weapons
if sufficiently challenged. Putin does not see the world through rose-colored glasses, and
does not see gay marriage and global warming as the seminal issues of our time.
FromBrooklyn, Europe 2 hours ago
Yes, and the US, Russia and Europe should cooperate without reviving cold-war posturing and
work together to defeat ISIS. Turkey can't be trusted; the Erdogans are getting rich from
illegal oil and covertly support the terrorists.
anthony weishar, Fairview Park, OH 2 hours ago
There is a glaring problem with the Turkish version of the incident. The pilots ejected and
landed in Syria, where "terrorist" captured or killed them. The Turkish map is not valid. If
the pilots did land in Turkey, that would mean Turkey is protecting ISIS members and Syrian
rebels.
Nick Zucker, San Francisco, CA 1 hour ago @Tolga
Nice revisionism there. All meant to justify a bellicose Turkish military of course. And
what about the disputed landbetwwen syria and turkey this article talks about?
Turkey is the only country that doesn't not respect Greek territorial integrity and the only
country that recognizes the northern regime in Cyprus. Face it, in the absence of true
democracy, Turkish politicians have been feeding Turks a steady diet of imagined external
threats (really, from Greece?) to consolidate public opinion around nationalist sentiment.
j. von hettlingen, is a trusted commenter switzerland 4 hours ago
Erdogan is trying to calm the storm and hold France 24 television: "We might have been
able to prevent this violation of our airspace differently."
Perhaps he realises that Ankara might have over-reacted. Turkish airforce could have
fired warning shots, without hitting the plane. It was essential to remind Russia of violating
Turkish air-space, although Russian planes are not a direct threat to Turkey.
But since Russia embarked on the intervention in Syria, its arbitrary shelling of Turkmens
in Syria, who are Turkish allies and rebels, backed by the West and the Arabs, has set the cat
among the pigeons.
The US stands by NATO, which defended Turkey's action, because nobody wants to upset Ankara
and jeopardise its access to the vital Turkish airbase at Incirlik.
That the Kremlin is considering severe economic ties to Turkey may just be rhetoric for
domestic consumption because the Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire had fought a series of
wars in the 17th-19th century. In recent years Moscow's support for Nagorno-Karabakh, the
Armenian-controlled breakaway enclave in Azerbaijan, is a thorn in Ankara's side, because
Azerbaijan and Turkey are seen as "one nation with two states. The annexation of Crimea has
led to the marginalisation of the Tartars, a Turkic ethnic group, for whose wellbeing Ankara
sees itself responsible.
Maxim, Canada, BC 2 hours ago
Please read what really happened:
https://www.rt.com/news/323651-turkey-su24-downing-syria/ Turkey staged a provocation with full knowledge of where and when this Russian airplane
will be. And after that NATO "fully supported" their member. I wonder why Russia sees NATO as
threat. The message is loud and clear - NATO countries may provoke Russia under the protection
of the allies.
John Warnock, Thelma KY 2 hours ago
Webster can add a new definition to the dictionary for "Middle East"; Quagmire. We need to
seriously weigh our long term strategic interests in regard to this region. Put rhetoric
aside. Put the infatuation of some with the Holy Land aside. Keep our support for Israel in
balance with our commitment to Human Rights.
Ultimately the Moslem Nations of the Middle East need to sort this mess out. The continued
interjection of the USA, Russia and Europe only delays the sorting out that must come to pass.
This sorting out must neutralize ISIS and similar groups and probably result in new
national boundaries and new nation states. So be it. ISIS is an idea, a terrible idea, not
territory.
You cannot destroy it by bombing physical things. The Moslem world must sort it out; just
as we have some adherents to various forms of fundamentalism in this country that we need to
address. We attract the attention of ISIS because we are there and foolishly do things like
maintain the prison at Guantanamo. We are not and should not consider ourselves the World's
Cop!
Syed Abbas, Dearborn MI 5 hours ago
The world has decided Russia is clearly on the right on this one.
However, Putin should not punish Turkish (and Russian) people for the sins of Erdogan. Moral
high ground is to protest, provide evidence, forgive, and forget, and move on.
Let the universe unfold as it should. Soon the sins of Erdogan will catch up with him.
"We told our US partners in advance where, when at what altitudes our pilots were going to
operate. The US-led coalition, which includes Turkey, was aware of the time and place
where our planes would operate. And this is exactly where and when we were attacked.
Why did we share this information with the Americans? Either they don't control their allies,
or they just pass this information left and right without realizing what the consequences of such
actions might be. We will have to have a serious talk with our US partners.
In other words, just like in the tragic bombing of the Kunduz hospital by US forces (which has
now been attributed to human error), so this time the target was a Russian plane which
the US knew about well in advance, was targeted however not by the US itself, but by
a NATO and US-alliance member, Turkey.
strannick
America gave ISIS the TOW rocket that exploded Russia's helicopter on a search and rescue mission
to save the remaining pilot.
America gave Turkey the co ordinates to shoot down the Russian bomber, so Turkeys corrupt leader
could continue profiting from selling oil for ISIS to fund ISIS terrorism.
Putin's patience is what keeps the world from the brink of nuclear war.
God bless and keep Vladimir Putin.
America is a piece of shit nation with a piece of shit president .
Turkey ,a prime supporter and enabler of ISS, just gagging to open a consulate for ISIS, shot
down a Russian aircraft involved in attacking ISIS. That seems like an ISIS airforce attack to
me, even if we ignore the fact that the USAF attacks Assad instead of ISIS etc.
Russian MOD briefing on the rescue of the navigator, and other subjects. Terrorists and
"other mysterious groups" with "special purpose locators" to find the pilot were eliminated by
Russian airstrikes and Syrian artillery. "Western" special forces maybe? It looks
like the shootdown was a planned ambush, and they were trying to capture a Russian pilot.
It's unclear when the footage was filmed, but video shows a man being hit by a strike.
The French launched airstrikes on Islamic State following the tragic Paris attacks, which
killed 130 people, but it's unclear if they were responsible for this bomb.
France has since released video of their strikes against ISIS.
It's believed the video was filmed between November 15 and 17, it was uploaded to YouTube
on November 18.
I find it amusing when muritards can't use logic against facts and truth they conveniently
paint others as trolls ( Ever thought why West MSM never reported on CIA disinfo agent
and State Deptt of US trolls , do you think they don't exist? Ha! They do but western
censor media is not allowed to report it even rest Google browser being american will
flash non-usa troll msm articles first.
"... Turkey can do much more to fight ISIS, but they are concentrated to fight or to separate or to isolate the Turkish fighters. The Peshmerga, as you know, is a staunch ally against ISIL or ISIS, and Turkey could also do more to stop the influx of foreign recruits a route to Syria. You mentioned the oil smuggling... so I think, a lot can be done, also to stop refugees, uncontrolled flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe. So I think Turkey should do more and on the summit of the EU and Turkey, Im sure a lot of our member-states will ask Turkey to do much more. ..."
Sophie Shevardnadze: Wolfgang Schussel former Chancellor and foreign minister
of Austria, welcome to the show, it's really great to have you with us. Now, a NATO country, Turkey,
has shot down a Russian bomber in Syria, claiming it strayed into Turkish airspace. When a Turkish
plane was shot for violating Syrian airspace, mr. Erdogan dubbed it an "attack with no excuse"
- now, when a Russian plane is shot by Turkey in similar circumstances, it's an "appropriate self-defence".
How this ambiguous stance of a NATO member and an EU candidate is viewed in Europea? Why is Turkey
changing its stance when it feels like it? What's European take on that?
Wolfgang Schussel: I think it's a nightmare incident, what happened a few days
ago. This is exactly what some military experts warned about - there were repeated warning that there
could be a clash between two nations in this already overcrowded Syrian sky. I think, what is needed
is more cooperation and coordination. And, I think, the response of Turkey, even if there would be
some incidents, let's say, for 2-5 seconds crossing a border land, it's not an appropriate reaction
for that. So, I think, what is needed is a military coordination in this very disputed area.
SS: But also, the way we look at it, this incident with the fighter jet has
only highlighted Turkey's dubious behaviour towards ISIS. I mean, the alleged buying of smuggled
oil from terrorists, allowing militant movement back and forth over the border and attacking Kurds
who are fighting ISIS. Why has this been tolerated by members of the anti-ISIS coalition for so long?
WS: I think it was criticised. Turkey can do much more to fight ISIS, but they
are concentrated to fight or to separate or to isolate the Turkish fighters. The Peshmerga, as you
know, is a staunch ally against ISIL or ISIS, and Turkey could also do more to stop the influx of
foreign recruits a route to Syria. You mentioned the oil smuggling... so I think, a lot can be done,
also to stop refugees, uncontrolled flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe. So I think Turkey should
do more and on the summit of the EU and Turkey, I'm sure a lot of our member-states will ask Turkey
to do much more.
SS: So you think on that summit Turkey is going to be asked by the allies
to get its anti-terror act together? Because, "criticising" and actually pressuring Turkey to do
this are two different things.
WS: Yeah, but you know, summit is a diplomatic effort to bring up different ideas
and to coordinate the political actions, and I think it's an important meeting. I would not underestimate
the impetus and a potential influx on the Turkish policy. I hope it will work.
SS: NATO said in October it is ready to defend Turkey against Russia. It
now has taken a much more cautious tone. Why the change?
WS: It should not be, so to say, confrontation of NATO and Russia. I think what
is needed is direct talks between Turkey and Russia and I hope, I got some information that there's
an already planned meeting between Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Turkish foreign minister. They
should discuss it, and, anyway, there is a strong need to coordinate military efforts. If Russia
- and I would support it - would become a member of the coalition against ISIS and ISIL, there's
a need to coordinate the actions, the moves, the targets, et cetera.
SS: Now, while the anti-terror campaign in Syria is ramping up, in Europe
operations following the Paris attacks are also in full swing. All of Austria's neighbors - Italy,
Hungary, Germany - they're on high terror alert in case of another attack. Why isn't Austria on such
an alert? Is Austria confident it's safe, I mean, feeling no need to raise the threat level? Is Austria
equipped to handle such a threat?
WS:I think, everybody is on alert and rightly so: because nobody can feel safe
and secure or exempt from terror attacks from Al-Qaeda, Daesh, ISIL, ISIS - call it what you want.
I think what we learned during the last years, months, or weeks or days is that nothing is guaranteed.
We're fighting for our way of life, to entertain us, to love, to listen to music, to meet, to speak
freely. This is an attack against all of us, an attack against our values. So I think we all have
to be united and no one should think he or she is exempt from being a target of these terrorists.
This is our common enemy, and we should also prioritise our action. In the moment, the most urgent
priority is to fight against ISIS, and then the rest should be settled. Political, diplomatic effort
to settle something, a diplomatic or political solution for Syria - that's for sure, this is needed,
but now the most important priority is to fight the Islamic forces.
I am wondering if these other foreign forces they refer to are Americans
and perhaps be the reason that after the shooting of the plane, Russia ended
up getting additional sanctions.
Interesting discussion, Opinion of Charles Shoebridge is quite interesting.
Notable quotes:
"... Russia fighting ISIS, among other purposes, can divide NATO in Russia's interest. Downing of Russia fighter is to distract Russia focus under encouragement of U.S. Russia must not lose sight of the ball and fall into the trap by revenging Turkey. ..."
And now for the consequences: In the wake of Turkey's intentional downing of a Russian military aircraft
over Syrian airspace, the Russia-Turkey relationship is in steep decline. Ankara says it merely acted
in self-defense, but it appears to be protecting Islamic State.
CrossTalking with Charles Shoebridge
and Yenal Kucuker.
William Bellah
The bigger picture is at stake and it all depends on China. The bigger picture is world
domination and Russia alone is not enough of a deterrent to stop the U.S. And NATO but with
China onboard, backing Russia in Syria, it is a whole different ball game
George Rizk -> Yancey Tobias
Yancey Tobias
Kucuker: "Turkey misunderstood,..." ???? This is nonsense. In the ME, the role of Turkey is
well understood. more...
You are correct. A couple of years ago, Egypt ousted a Muslim Brotherhood President, who
had sent terrorist to Syria, and looked the other way as Islamists in Egypt torched 75
churches. Mr. Erdoghan at the UN podium chose to condemn Egypt's more than 30 millions
revolution against the Muslim extremists. Erdoghan, has exposed himself as a supporter of
Muslim extremism, barbarism right at the UN a couple of years ago, and the news are full of
information about the terrorist training camps and arms smuggling from Turkey into Syria.
George Rizk
The way this issue should be framed is: gangs of savages have been armed and encouraged by
Muslim Sunni fanatic countries to oust Assad. The savages behaved in extremely barbaric
fashion, and went after European targets, which made the West repulsed by their actions.
Nevertheless, no country had enough guts to send forces to support these barbarians.
Russia decided after four years of such devastation to fight them. Hence Russia is
attempting to protect human kind from such subhuman gangs. Any one defending these subhumans
is a supporter of forces of darkness. Tukey should be ousted from the UN, and NATO.
Chunde Shi
Russia fighting ISIS, among other purposes, can divide NATO in Russia's interest.
Downing of Russia fighter is to distract Russia focus under encouragement of U.S. Russia must
not lose sight of the ball and fall into the trap by revenging Turkey.
Vidas Jack
One i can say , Russia is not Great World Power as it was USSR, and that the reason how
NATO took down Su-24 in the manner of engagement Russia to WW3.
"... Erdo an also touched on the joint press conference held by Putin and French President François Hollande on Nov. 26, describing the former's comments as "unacceptable." Denying allegations that Turkey has been purchasing oil from ISIL, Erdo an said the oil trade between ISIL, Russia and the Syrian regime had been documented by the United States. ..."
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned Russia "not to play with fire" in the wake of a
crisis between Ankara and Moscow following the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey on Nov. 24 near
the Syrian border.
"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin says 'those who have double standards on terrorism are
playing with fire.' I totally agree with him," Erdoğan said Nov. 27 in the northern province of
Bayburt.
"Indeed, supporting the [Bashar] al-Assad regime in Syria, which has killed 380,000 people, is
playing with fire. Striking opposition groups that have international legitimacy with the excuse
of fighting against Daesh [an acronym of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL] is
playing with fire. Using an incident in which Turkey's righteousness is accepted by the whole
world as an excuse to torment our citizens who were in Russia to attend a fair is playing with
fire. Irresponsibly hitting trucks in the region that are there for trade or humanitarian reasons
is playing with fire. We sincerely advise Russia not to play with fire," he added.
Erdoğan also expressed his willingness to meet Putin during the upcoming climate change summit in
Paris in order to find common ground and avoid a further escalation of tension.
"We are uncomfortable with efforts to take the dispute over the downed jet into other areas of
relations. Let's not allow that to happen," he said, underlining that maintaining good relations
was beneficial for both countries.
Claiming that Turkey's shooting down of the Russian jet was not "intentional" but simply a result
of an automatic enforcement of rules of engagement, Erdoğan nevertheless argued that Turkey was
right to do so.
"Turkey has proved its honesty" by releasing audio recordings of the warnings issued to the
Russian pilots, he added.
Erdoğan also touched on the joint press conference held by Putin and French President
François Hollande on Nov. 26, describing the former's comments as "unacceptable." Denying
allegations that Turkey has been purchasing oil from ISIL, Erdoğan said the oil trade between
ISIL, Russia and the Syrian regime had been documented by the United States.
Any trade retaliation by Russia over
Turkey's downing of a jet flying sorties in Syria would hurt
Russian farmers more, Turkish
Agriculture Minister Faruk Çelik said on Nov. 27, pointing to import-export figures.
Turkey has not yet received official notification of any embargo by Russia, Çelik also told
reporters.
However, it would be wrong to let the tensions between
Russia and Turkey impact farming,
commercial and economic ties, he said.
Russia has increased checks on food and agriculture imports from Turkey, the Agriculture Ministry
said on Nov. 26, in the first public move to curb trade in a dispute with
Ankara for the downing a
Russian fighter jet.
The Russian government told Russia's
food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor to increase controls after agriculture ministry research
showed about 15 percent of agriculture imports from Turkey did not meet regulations, the
Russian ministry said.
Çelik said Turkey exports around $1.3 billion of agricultural goods to
Russia and buys $.2.9 billion of
agricultural products from Russia.
"Any trade retaliation move will hurt mainly
Russian farmers, not Turkish farmers,"
he said.
...the country's tourist board has suspended all tours to Turkey, a move that it estimated would
cost the Turkish economy $10bn (£6.6bn). Russia also said it was suspending all military cooperation
with Turkey, including closing down an emergency hotline to share information on Russian airstrikes
in Syria.
Putin accused Turkey of deliberately trying to bring relations between Moscow and Ankara to a
standstill, adding that Moscow was still awaiting an apology or an offer of reimbursement for damages.
He earlier called the act a "stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and promised "serious
consequences"
... ... ...
Russia has insisted that its plane never strayed from Syrian airspace, while Turkey says it crossed
into its airspace for 17 seconds. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that even if
this was the case, shooting the plane down was an extreme over-reaction and looked like a pre-planned
provocation.
"... It can safely be assumed that the US influenced Turkey into shooting down the Russian jet over
Syrian airspace, predicting quite accurately that this would immediately lead to the deterioration of
ties between the two states. An elementary forecast of the specific counter-measures that Russia may
take stipulates that these will likely relate to the diplomatic, economic, and energy sectors, which
is just what the US wants. ..."
"... Furthermore, Turkish Stream looks to be indefinitely put on hold, thus delaying Russia's game-changing
pivot to the Balkans. ..."
Turkey's shooting down of the Russian anti-ISIL aircraft was an unprecedentedly direct
aggression against Moscow that trumps even the tense and hostile militarism of the Old Cold War era.
The world stands on edge in the immediate aftermath of this attack, with tabloid-esque commentators
warning that the beginning of World War III awaits. President Putin, for his part, has been much
more measured in responding to the incident, but still
couldn't contain
his shock at having received this "stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists."
The question now comes down to how Russia will respond to what happened, but perhaps even
more important for observers to ponder is why the US is unofficially distancing itself from its ally's
aggression. Despite both
NATO and
Obama
giving full backing to Turkey's fateful decision,
Reuters has quoted an anonymous American military official that purposely leaked that the Russian
plane was downed while over Syrian airspace, basing the assessment on heat signature detection. This
raises questions about why the US is playing both sides of the fence – on one hand, publicly
supporting Turkey, while on the other, strategically releasing information that conflicts with Turkey's
official depiction of events.
The Setup:
This dichotomy is suggestive of a Machiavellian plan whereby the US manipulates both Turkey
and Russia into behaving according to what it has already forecast as their most likely responses,
knowing full well that these could be guided into supporting grander American strategic interests.
For starters, the US likely intimated to Erdogan that not only does he have the 'legal' right to
shoot down any Russian aircraft he chooses, but that the US would actually prefer for him to take
this course of action sooner than later. This is reminiscently similar to how the US put Sakkashvili
up to bombing Tskhinval and invading South Ossetia – it may not have directly issued an official,
on-paper order for this to occur, but it left no ambiguity as to how it wanted its proxy to act in
each situation.
According To Plan:
For the most part, this explains the public pronouncements of NATO and the US' support
for Turkey's actions, and it also goes a long way in soothing Erdogan's nerves and reassuring him
that he did the right thing. The predicted aftereffect of the plane's downing was an immediate
deterioration of Russian-Turkish relations, with the full consequences potentially affecting the
diplomatic, military, economic, and energy spheres. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
cancelled
his upcoming trip to Turkey and advised Russian tourists to refrain from visiting the country due
to the terrorism level being similar to Egypt's. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has
spoken
about the possibility of barring Turkish companies from the Russian market and cancelling planned
nuclear and gas projects with the country.
All of these prospective actions are fully justifiable and grounded in the self-respect
that Russia feels in not aiding what has proven itself to be a militantly hostile state no matter
the economic stakes involved, but at the same time, one can't help but wonder whether this
is exactly what the US wanted. There's no doubt that Russia would react this way, as even a cursory
glance of its potential 'response toolkit' indicates that these are the most likely to be taken amidst
any deterioration of relations. Therefore, it can't be discounted that the US put Erdogan
up to shooting down the Russian jet precisely to provoke the predictable Russian response in threatening
to cancel its forthcoming energy projects with Turkey, the core of the strategic partnership between
the two. If this is the case, and it certainly seems likely, then it shows exactly how
far the US is willing to go to make sure that Russian energy (and subsequently, all of the soft power
and multipolar advantages that come with it) doesn't enter the Balkans through the Turkish Stream
megaproject, likely because it understands the transformative impact that this would eventually have
on the entire region.
The Curveball:
Thus far, everything seems reasonable and well within the realm of predictability, but
the curveball comes with the Reuters revelation that an unnamed American military source is essentially
saying that the Russian position is justified. Unexpectedly, it now seems as though the
US is also playing to Russia's side to an extent, and this raises questions about what it really
wants. After all, it's been
proven beyond
any doubt that American-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles were used to down the Russian rescue
helicopter that attempted to retrieve the two pilots. With this indisputable evidence of indirect
American aggression against Russia, it certainly is a curious fact that the US establishment
would purposely leak a statement saying that the Turkey downed the Russian plane in Syrian airspace,
and basically take Russia's side on this behind the scenes.
Playing The Kurdish Card:
Explaining this diplomatic twist requires knowledge about the popular response that Russian citizens
and global supporters worldwide are requesting to Turkey's aggression. They quite reasonably
propose that Russia intensify its arms shipments to anti-ISIL Kurdish fighters, with the wink-and-a-nod
approval that some of them would be siphoned off to the PKK and be used against the Turkish military.
This is an effective and pragmatic plan, and in reality, it actually doesn't even require a policy
shift from Moscow because support is already being rendered to some Kurdish groups as part of their
joint cooperation in the anti-ISIL struggle. The
Kurdish Insurgency hasn't gone away since Erdogan unwittingly unearthed it this summer as an
electioneering tool, and the fact that it's still going strong even after the elections has scared
him so much that he might have been the one who ordered the recent
assassination attempt against pro-Kurdish HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas. Thus,
if Russia chooses to inflict an asymmetrical response to Turkey by beefing up its indirect support
for the PKK and other Turkish-based anti-government Kurds or disrupting Blue Stream gas supplies
in order to provoke an intensified rebellion, then it could certainly inflict a heavy amount of strategic
damage to Erdogan and increase the likelihood either of a military coup in Turkey (explained more
in detail as part of a different article accessible
here) and/or the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
That being said, the US has traditionally been the out-of-regional power that has the greatest
interest in Kurdistan, seeing the possible state as a 'geopolitical Israel' from which it can simultaneously
exert influence on the rump portions of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The strategic trajectory of
a theorized Kurdish state has been complicated by the anti-ISIL campaign, however, since many Kurds
have shown themselves to be pragmatic in cooperating with Russia and Iran against this shared threat.
The positive multipolar cooperation that each of these countries has engaged in with the Kurds challenges
the US' planned hegemony over them and their territory, and it thus means that any forthcoming independent
Kurdish political entity could theoretically go either towards the multipolar or the unipolar camps.
At this point in time, and given all of the dynamic military and diplomatic developments of the past
couple of months, the loyalty of a future Kurdish state (no matter if its boundaries are confined
only to present-day Turkey and/or Iraq) is totally up for grabs, and it's impossible to accurately
forecast which way it will go.
The strategic ambiguity that this entails means a few things to the US and Russia. For the US,
it indicates that the time is now for it to bunker down and support Kurdistan's independence before
it loses the strategic initiative to Russia, which might be moving in this direction (whether formally
or informally) out of grand geopolitical spite for Turkey. Moscow, as was just mentioned,
seems inclined to hit Ankara where it hurts most, and that's through supporting the Kurdish Insurgency
in one way or another. However, it's not yet known how far this would go, and whether Russia
would pursue this strategy as a form of short-term vengeance or if it would resolutely go as far
in recognizing Kurdish Independence if it could ever be de-facto actualized. Of course, Russia wouldn't
do anything that could endanger the territorial integrity of its Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian allies,
but if the Turkish-based Kurds contained their ambitions solely within the borders of Russia's historical
rival, then it might be able to rectify itself with this reality, especially if they even refrain
from legal independence and instead seek a sort of broadly de-facto independent federative or autonomous
status within a unified Turkey (which could only realistically be brought about by an intensified
insurgency and/or a coup in Ankara).
Joining Hands For Kurdistan:
Having explained all of this, it's now clear that a remarkable convergence of strategic
interests has developed between the US and Russia focusing on Turkish-administered Kurdistan.
Understanding the changing calculations that Russia may now be having towards this topic as a response
to Turkey's aggression against it, one can't necessarily preclude the possibility that the Reuters
leak was actually a strategic overture to Russia. Washington might be sending a signal that it wants
to speak to Moscow about ways to cooperate in this regard, knowing that each of them possibly have
an interest now in seeing the proto-state rise to the fore of the global arena. A shared
understanding has likely developed by now that a New Cold War competition for Kurdistan's loyalty
could be fought after the entity is legally formalized (whether as an independent state or a de-facto
independent sub-state entity modeled off of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq), and that the
two Great Powers need to put aside some of their differences in joining hands to see this happen
first.
Such a strong signal could have been discretely and secretly communicated to Russia via secure
diplomatic and intelligence channels, but the reason it was so publicly broadcast via Reuters, the
global newswire service, is because the US also wants to send a signal to Turkey as well. Despite taking its side on the matter before the global eye, the US is also "stabbing its
ally in the back", to channel President Putin, by purposely leaking the information that the Russian
jet was shot down over Syrian airspace. It's not news that the US has been unhappy with
Erdogan for not behaving more submissively in the past and refusing to blindly go along with the
previous plans to invade Syria (rendered useless after Russia's anti-terrorist military intervention
there), so it might be trying to convey the message it's had enough of his games and is now playing
their own in return. Of course, the US has always been manipulating Turkey ever since it joined NATO
and allowed the Americans to operate out of Incirlik airbase, but this time, the treachery is being
taken to a higher level by implicitly throwing out suggestions to Russia, Turkey's new foe (and only
because the US manipulated Turkey into taking aggressive action against it), that it might want to
team up in undermining Ankara's control over its volatile southeast.
Concluding Thoughts:
It can safely be assumed that the US influenced Turkey into shooting down the Russian jet
over Syrian airspace, predicting quite accurately that this would immediately lead to the deterioration
of ties between the two states. An elementary forecast of the specific counter-measures that Russia
may take stipulates that these will likely relate to the diplomatic, economic, and energy sectors,
which is just what the US wants. Because of Turkey's aggression against Russia, the strategic
partnership between the two is now broken (although not necessarily irreversibly), and Ankara has
become the fourth and perhaps most geopolitically significant member of the anti-Russian
Intermarum coalition. Furthermore, Turkish Stream looks to be indefinitely put on hold, thus
delaying Russia's game-changing pivot to the Balkans. While the 'unintended' consequence of
the crisis has been Russia's foreseeable and absolutely legitimate
decision to deploy the S-400 SAM system to Syria, this in a way also plays to the manipulated
Turkish-Russian rivalry that the US wanted to produce in order to solidify the completion of the
Intermarum project and simultaneously counter Russia's growing influence in the Mideast.
The reaction that no one could have predicted, however, is the US purposely leaking comments to
Reuters that support the Russian version of events, namely, that the anti-terrorist jet was shot
down while flying over Syrian airspace. This completely conflicts with what the US and NATO
have said in public, but it shows that the US has had enough time to game out the plane-shooting
scenario well in advance, and that it's playing a sinister divide-and-conquer game against Turkey
and Russia. Put in the position where its decision makers are scrambling for responses to
the unprecedented aggression against them, Russia can now more easily be led into supporting the
Kurdish struggle for sovereignty (whether formally independent or de-facto so) in Turkey, which coincides
with one of the US' premier geopolitical projects.
From an American perspective, a divided Turkey is doubly useful for its grand strategic
designs, as the large pro-NATO Turkish military would remain mostly intact, while the US could gain
a major base for force projection (both hard and soft) right in between some of the most important
states in the region. It can't, however, go fully forward with this project unless it has
the support of the diplomatic leader of the multipolar world, Russia, otherwise Kurdistan will be
just as illegitimate as Kosovo is and might not even come to geopolitical fruition if Moscow and
Tehran work to stop it.
Seen from the Russian standpoint, the US' intimations actually seen quite attractive. An increase
of Russian support to anti-ISIL Kurdish fighters would be a plausibly deniable but strategically
obvious way to funnel weapons and equipment to anti-Turkish PKK insurgents. Weakening Turkey
from within would be a strong asymmetrical response to a country that has lately been a major thorn
in Moscow's side, and it might create the conditions either for a military coup against Erdogan,
a divide between him and Davutoglu (which could be used to Russia's diplomatic advantage so long
as the constitution remains unchanged and Davutoglu legally remains more powerful than Erdogan),
or a weakening of Erdogan and a tempering of his anti-Russian and anti-Syrian positions.
Importantly, the emergence of an independent or semi-independent Kurdish entity in Turkey could
create a tempting piece of geopolitical real estate in the New Cold War, but of course, it would
then be contested between the multipolar and unipolar worlds. Still, however, it would represent
a positive multipolar development in the Mideast, since under the present state of affairs, the entirety
of Turkish territory is under unipolar control. If a large chunk of it suddenly became the object
of competition between both blocs, then it would definitely signify a strategic advancement at the
expense of unipolarity. Of equal importance, this would also significantly impact on the Turkish
state and whatever government is in power by that time, and it could possibly make it more amenable
to returning to the previously pragmatic relationship with Russia and perhaps even resurrecting Turkish
Stream.
Therefore, Russia surprisingly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by covertly
supporting the Kurdish cause in Turkey, no matter if it's full-out independence or relatively more
restrained autonomy, and even if this is objective is shared by the US and done in semi-coordination
with it. Turkey would immediately be put on the defensive (although it could try desperately
responding by supporting Tatar terrorists in Crimea), the multipolar world have a chance at competing
for the loyalty of an ultra-strategically positioned entity, and the consequences that this has for
the Turkish government (whether it remains the same or is changed via a [military] coup) could recreate
the political conditions for Turkish Stream's feasibility.
Main_Sequence
The shooting down of the Russia's SU-24 that had allegedly crossed into Turkish airspace was
highly likely architected by the USSA and executed directly by CIA assets to drive a wedge between
Russia and Turkey to further isolate Russia, and try to prevent any construction of natural gas
pipelines from Russia via Turkey, that will eventually feed into Europe.
Due to Turkey's geo-strategic location between the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia for
gas pipelines, Turkey becomes the lynchpin for controlling the entire energy distribution network
across the aforementioned regions.
DeadFred's picture
Whoa! Who says this un-named military official was doing what the Kenyan guy wanted? There
are a lot of them left who detest him and some even remember that their oaths were to the constitution.
Not much left of it but that's what they swore to protect.
America always fucks over their "friends".
It's only when you're their enemy that you know where you stand.
After 60 years on this spinning globe and having lived and seen from abroad, it's all a lie, American Pie, American Dream.
Welder
I'd love to see the Turks driven out of Asia Minor back to the steppes of Central Asia
where they came from. And Istanbul's name changed back to Constantinople. It's a nice piece of
real estate. Strategic too.
Coke and Hookers
This is an interesting analysis though. The only real action the US has apparently taken
against ISIS is to support the Kurdish offensive. It seems clear that the US has some sort of
plan for future Kurdistan and that ain't the same plan Turkey has. This discrepancy has gotten
little attention so far. It makes sense that the US is grooming Kurdistan as a future client
state in the area. The Kurds have been semi allied with Iran and Assad for a long time and
neutralizing that would be a major bonus.
r0mulus
I don't buy the argument in this article.
The leaking of info to the media by the US general does not necessarily signify the desire of
the US to undercut Turkey- it just as easily could suggest a power struggle between elite
circles within the overall power structure, or it could simply be a whistleblower coming
forward.
The author seems to have jumped to conclusions with their assertion regarding the intention of
the leak.
fleur de lis
NATO is hellbent for a war with Russia.
Notice how none of the other NATO club members dare to rough up the Russians. But they needed
a point man so they somehow convinced Turkey to shoot down a fighter jet. They must have
promised something very sweet to the Turks. What could go wrong?
Did they mention that the FSA, ISIS, etc., would be on the ground waiting? And the cold
blooded murder of a Russian pilot was part of the deal? And that their kinfolk the ethnic
Turkmen would be so stupid as to boast about it on video for all the world to see?
Now the Turks realize that they have been poisoned. And they have been abandoned by their NATO
friends and left to face a very angry bear all alone. The Turks had better wake up and realize
that they have never been respected by NATO and are considered expendable by Western
warmongers.
Winston Churchill
As I said on the other article, I'm begining to think that shooting down the jet was aimed
at getting the S400's deployed. The west doesn't want anymore Russian surprises like
the radar jamming tech Breedlove keeps whining about.
No way this pre planned ambush was not OKed by Uncle Scam. Deploying 400's instead of the
nearly obsolete S300's may have been a mistake.
When the foreign ministers of 17 countries met in Vienna on 30 October, they agreed, among other
things, that "Daesh [Islamic State] and other terrorist groups, as designated by the UN Security
Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated."
With this rallying cry in mind, Russia's chief diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, is now pressing for preparation
of a list of all terrorist groups operating in Syria, so that the country may be rid of them through
concerted international action.
When the same ministers convened again in Vienna, on Saturday, 14 November, the idea had gained
some traction.
"It is time to deprive the terrorists of any single kilometre in which to hide," US Secretary
of State John Kerry said.
The Russians are now pressing for two lists to be prepared: one for terrorist groups that must
be annihilated, and one for friendly groups that can take part in the fight against the former. Jordan
has been asked to prepare the list of terrorist groups.
But Syrian opposition groups are wary of the Russian approach. They fear that what Moscow is trying
to obtain is not a list of groups involved in human rights abuses, but a list of groups opposed to
Bashar Al-Assad's regime.
Sifting through the 800 or so armed groups operating in Syria today the Russians identified only
40 groups that they consider to be "moderate".
However, opposition figures told Al-Ahram Weekly that there are many more groups that have never
been accused of human rights violations, never hired foreign fighters and never committed atrocities.
These groups have for the past four years fought against both Islamic State (IS) and the regime.
Many of these groups are small, often operating within the perimeters of their villages or towns.
They operate mostly in self-defence, and many have sworn to abide by the international laws of war
and human rights principles.
At the recent meeting in Vienna, it was clear that neither Russia nor Iran is willing to discuss
the fate of President Hafez Al-Assad. Indeed, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif threatened
to pull out of the Vienna talks if Al-Assad's fate was placed on the agenda.
So, without tackling this thorny issue, the foreign ministers came up with an 18-month plan, starting
from early next year, to form an interim government and hold elections.
UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura described the plan as "challenging but possible."
According to the plan, delegates from the government and the "whole spectrum of opposition forces"
should meet no later than 1 January 2016 to discuss the formation of an interim government. This
interim government, the ministers agreed, will draft a new constitution and hold new elections within
the next 18 months.
This will be a "Syrian-led process", Lavrov said during the talks, which were infused with a sense
of urgency in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
Mohamed Sabra, chief of the Syrian Republic Party, took issue with the Russian proposals. "The
Russian proposal is based on dividing combatant groups into those who agree to a political deal and
those who oppose it," he told the Weekly.
"Once the UN Security Council endorses [the terror lists], this would allow the shelling and extermination
of those armed groups that Moscow seeks to destroy," he added.
According to Sabra, Moscow is also trying to isolate Islamic groups that disagree with the principles
of a democratic and secular state, and thus exclude them from the political process.
"This will lead to a realignment of forces, change the essence of the military conflict in Syria,
and sow the seeds of civil war in the country," Sabra remarked.
Among the many armed groups working in Syria today are some that have Gulf backing, others that
are supported by Turkey, and some that are homegrown. Kurdish groups have taken up arms, as have
the Turkmen, Assyrians, Druze, Christians, Sunnis and Shias.
Then there is the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is an alliance of all of the above. Some of these
groups have no more than 100 members, while some have tens of thousands of men under arms.
Deciding which of these groups is terrorist in nature is not going to be an easy task. Sayeed
Muqbil, a prominent Syrian opposition figure, said that well-defined criteria must be set to differentiate
between terrorists and non-terrorists.
"Before preparing the lists, we must bear in mind that the Syrian regime is responsible for 96
per cent of civilian casualties," Muqbil said, adding that the remaining four per cent were killed
by other armed groups, including IS.
"So the forces of the regime and its affiliated militia should be subject also to the same norms.
Also, the Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian outfits fighting in Syria must be brought under the same scrutiny,"
said Muqbil.
In the flurry of diplomatic efforts to find a quick fix for the war in Syria it must not be forgotten
that officials in the current regime have ordered massacres to be carried out, barrel bombs to be
dropped from planes, and chemical weapons to be used against civilians.
Armed groups affiliated with the regime have killed and abducted its opponents and pillaged areas
deemed hostile to the regime. These groups include the National Defence Militia (Milishyat Al-Difaa
Al-Watani), Baath Battalions (Kataeb Al-Baath), People's Committees (Al-Ijan Al-Shaabiya), Tempest
Eagles (Nosour Al-Zawbaah), Orchard Society (Jamiet Al-Oustan), Hatay Liberation Movement (Harakat
Tahrir Iskandarun) and Syria's Hezbollah.
Iraqi groups affiliated with Iran have also committed atrocities. These include the Brigade of
Abul Fadl Al-Abbas (Liwa Abul Fadl Al-Abbas), Fatimids Brigade (Liwa Fatimiyun), Zeinab Followers
Brigade (Liwaz Zeinabiyun), Mahdi Army (Jeish Al-Mahdi) and Iraq's Hezbollah.
Palestinian factions fighting alongside the regime have also committed human rights abuses, including
documented massacres. These groups include the Popular Front Militia (Milishia Al-Jabha Al-Shaabiya),
Quds Brigade (Liwa Al-Quds), Thunderbolt Forces (Quwat Al-Saiqa) and Palestine Liberation Army (Jeish
Al-Tahrir Al-Filastini).
The IRGC (the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and Lebanon's Hezbollah have also been implicated
in war crimes.
Members of Syria's opposition that the Weekly spoke with say that the international community
must examine all these groups. If terror is to be isolated, it must be done using clear criteria
- criteria that is applied to all parties in the conflict.
"... Ankara may have simply decided it had to nip Russia's incremental aggressions in the bud, with the ruling AK Party feeling particularly confident on the heels of an election sweep last month. ..."
"... Ankara may also have been acting under domestic political pressure to defend the Syrian Turkmen rebels - who are considered ethnic Turks - active on the Syrian side of the border in Hatay province ..."
"... At the very least, many expect an escalation in Russian strikes on Turkey-backed rebels in Syria, including the Turkmens, in retaliation. ..."
"... increase Russian assistance to the Syrian Kurds, whom Turkey views as "a clear and present danger" due to their ties to the Kurdish PKK insurgency in southeast Turkey. ..."
... Ankara may have simply decided it had to nip Russia's incremental aggressions in the
bud, with the ruling AK Party feeling particularly confident on the heels of an election sweep
last month.
Soner Cagaptay, a Turkey analyst at the Washington Institute think thank in Washington, D.C.,
noted that Ankara may also have been acting under domestic political pressure to defend the
Syrian Turkmen rebels - who are considered ethnic Turks - active on the Syrian side of the border
in Hatay province, where the plane was shot down. Russian targeting of Turkmen fighters, who
are said to number in the thousands, has been a sore spot for many Turks.
But Turkey didn't appear to have NATO's backing in its decision to shoot down the plane,
analysts said...
... Still, analysts said there was a sense of inevitability that this sort of incident could
happen again. The Kremlin has sent out signals that Tuesday's events won't deter its mission in
northern Syria, where Russian air power has been critical in rolling back rebel gains against
Moscow's client, the Assad regime. At the very least, many expect an escalation in Russian
strikes on Turkey-backed rebels in Syria, including the Turkmens, in retaliation. Fadi
Hakura, a Turkey analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, pointed out that an even more
provocative step would be to increase Russian assistance to the Syrian Kurds, whom Turkey
views as "a clear and present danger" due to their ties to the Kurdish PKK insurgency in
southeast Turkey.
Turkey is getting desperate. Under President Recep Tayip Erdogan and his party, the Justice
and Development Party (AKP), its policies toward the conflict in Syria over the past four years
have been misguided and costly. When conflict broke out in 2011, Ankara mistakenly
under-estimated the strength of the Assad regime and supported hardline Islamist groups seeking
its downfall. In the process, Turkey also marginalised the Kurds and alienated regional powers
like Iran.
Four years on, Assad looks set to hold onto power and his regime will be a central part of a
transition plan, one that foreign powers were negotiating last weekend. Turkey's regional rival,
Iran, is a key player which can no longer be ignored by the West. Not only does the pro-Assad
alliance now have Russian support firmly on its side, but the international community is no
longer focused on defeating the regime – instead, it is concerned with defeating jihadist groups
like Isis.
The shift in focus is a significant drawback for Erdogan. Years of support for, and investment
in, Islamic fundamentalist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria) and Ahrar
al-Sham are about to go to waste. Ankara has played a significant role in allowing Isis and other
jihadists to flourish in Syria and the region. Turkey has acquiesced to jihadist groups entering
Syria via Turkey as well as their use of Turkey as a transit point for smuggling arms and funds
into Syria.
...The Kurds in Syria, meanwhile, have established themselves as a reliable Western ally and
have created, in the process, an autonomous Kurdish region that has reinvigorated Kurdish
nationalism in Turkey and across the region - much to Turkey's dismay as it continues a brutal
military campaign to repress the Kurds.
\...The West appeased and bolstered Erdogan in Turkey in the run-up to the country's
elections, with the aim of securing a deal with Ankara on the refugee crisis. It may now regret
that. Erdogan is not only likely to drive a hard bargain but he may also walk away.
"... Western diplomats believe that, at best, Turkey for too long turned a blind eye to jihadist fighters using Turkey as a conduit for fighters and weapons. ..."
He hit back at claims that Turkish officials profited financially from the sale of oil from
Isis-held territory, telling his critics: "Shame on you."
In a claim likely to raise eyebrows not only in Moscow but also in Washington, Mr Erodogan
insisted that Turkey's fight against jihadists was "undisputed". Western diplomats believe
that, at best, Turkey for too long turned a blind eye to jihadist fighters using Turkey as a
conduit for fighters and weapons.
"... All journalists in one voice say that the resulting shooting - professional, and obviously not filmed with a single camera. ..."
"... That is, the provocation was really well prepared. But then the question arises, what we want to achieve this provocation? And whose is it? Erdogan? Or the United States? Or NATO? Or military Turkish intelligence? ..."
"... Now Erdogan clumsily backtrack his previous statements. He stated that the Turkish authorities did not know what brought down the Russian plane, thinking it was Syrian. This is an outright lie. Erdogan gave in to the pressure of his corrupt son who asked his father to avenge for the the trucks burned by Russia's air strikes. ..."
"... Ambush of Russian aircraft is not accidental and is rooted in the psychology of Erdogan. He just won the parliamentary elections: for this purpose he destroyed the peace with the Kurds and started a war with them - in fact, only in order to obtain a parliamentary majority. He is very militant. And due to successes he lost the sense of reality. Now he says that he does not want escalation of the conflict. ..."
I think, for anybody not a secret that the impact on Russian aircraft was a well-calculated
provocation. Recently I visited "al-Jazeera international, al-Jazeera, the Them", Sky News and
other international channels. I had the opportunity to consult with different and very
professional operators. All journalists in one voice say that the resulting shooting -
professional, and obviously not filmed with a single camera.
That is, the provocation was really well prepared. But then the question arises, what we want
to achieve this provocation? And whose is it? Erdogan? Or the United States? Or NATO? Or military
Turkish intelligence?
Before you respond to provocation, you need to comprehend the situation. However, it is clear
that this was a treacherous blow and the lies of the officials. Turkish plane flew into Syrian
territory for the attack by Russian aircraft. Even in NATO, Turkey has presented evidence that
Russian aircraft flew for 17 seconds. During this time, 10 times no one would be able to warn our
pilot.
Turkish officials, of course, completely lost face. They lie that the plane was shot down over
Turkish territory. Even if the plane flew for 17 seconds when he got hit, he was away over Syria.
Lie that warned of the Russian pilots. Lying, that didn't mean it. It is clear that this is a
trap. They lie that they do not consider Russia as the enemy. Lying that Russian planes, when
they even flew into Turkish territory, pose a threat to the security of Turkey. The same Erdogan
has repeatedly said that short-flown aircraft is not an excuse to open fire.
Now Erdogan clumsily backtrack his previous statements. He stated that the Turkish
authorities did not know what brought down the Russian plane, thinking it was Syrian. This is an
outright lie. Erdogan gave in to the pressure of his corrupt son who asked his father to avenge
for the the trucks burned by Russia's air strikes.
Ambush of Russian aircraft is not accidental and is rooted in the psychology of Erdogan. He
just won the parliamentary elections: for this purpose he destroyed the peace with the Kurds and
started a war with them - in fact, only in order to obtain a parliamentary majority. He is very
militant. And due to successes he lost the sense of reality. Now he says that he does not
want escalation of the conflict.
And Russia does not want escalation, but to forgive treacherous murder of our pilot Russia
too. Erdogan needs to understand that. He has a chance to apologize and pay the damages. To do
this, Turkey should recognize that shot down Russian aircraft over Syrian territory. Erdogan
should apologize to the family of the Russian pilot and assign her a huge lifetime pension. He
also needs to give the order to stop military support to Islamic state terrorists and to
prosecute those who organized the attack on the Russian plane.
If you meet those conditions, Russia might be satisfied. If Erdogan going to insist that the
Turkish military have the right to kill any Russian citizen, whenever and wherever you want, then
Russia needs to radically change its position on all issues which are sensitive for Erdogan. And
first of all on Kurds.
Russia's response should be asymmetric. We need to fins set of measures the most painful for
Erdogan, while maximally avoiding the negative consequences for the Russian population and for
Turkish. First of all, the response must be to change the attitude of Russia to the Kurdish
resistance and struggle of the Kurds with Turkey. Even minor efforts of Russia in this direction
can jeopardize the stability of Erdogan regime and, most likely, will lead to its collapse.
But what we don't need is anti-Turkish hysteria. Neither Russia nor Turkey as the government is
not interested to be drawn into conflict with each other. Only our strategic opponents profitable
to pit Russia and Turkey against each other ans see from the sidelines the destructive effects of
this.
Responsibility for this crime lies with the President Erdogan and the elite around him. It is
foolish to blame the Turkish people. We should stop insulting a whole nation.
But the answer should follow. The answer should be tough but limited. And it should hit both
Erdogan and his close associates guilty of this vile provocation. In no case we need a
prepetition of events near the Turkish Embassy with stones knocking out Windows. Embassies in
Russia of all countries should be inviolable. Only in this case we can claim a similar
relationship to our embassies abroad.
I would also like to warn against hasty measures in trade and the economy. Cooperation with
Turkey is beneficial not only her, but also of Russia and Russian citizens. Any economic
sanctions should be applied only in case if we are confident that they minimally affect our
population. Again, good work with the Kurds, and the destruction of the joint Turkish-ISIS oil
transportation channel might help to created problems for Erdogan regime.
tour operators and travel agents have been asked to refrain from selling tours that involve
flights (including commercial flights) from the Russian Federation to Turkey
The Russian foreign Ministry confirms the recommendation for Russian citizens to refrain from
visiting Turkey, and those who are on the territory of the Republic, advises to return to their
Homeland. This is stated in an official statement the Russian foreign Ministry.
The report stressed that it involves "continuing in Turkey for terrorist threats".
Earlier, the Minister of foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov has decided to celebrate his
visit to Turkey. Also he recommended that the Russians to refrain from traveling to this country.
However, he stressed that this recommendation is not even involved with the crash of the Russian
plane su-24.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday called for tough sanctions against Turkey
that could bite into more than $30 billion in trade ties between the two countries, as police
here began seizing Turkish products and deporting Turkish businessmen.
Russian officials are seething after Turkish F-16s downed a Russian warplane over the Syrian
border in a debacle that ultimately left two Russian servicemen dead. Turkey says that the
Russian plane breached its airspace and was warned five times to turn back, charges that Russia
denies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the act as "a stab in the back from the
accomplices of terrorists," and on Thursday said in televised remarks that Turkey still had not
apologized over the incident.
On Thursday, it became clear that the Russian government was now turning its ire on whatever
extensions of the Turkish economy it could get its hands on.
At a cabinet meeting, Medvedev said that joint investment projects with Turkey would be frozen or
canceled. Negotiations over a proposed preferential trade regime with Turkey would also be
scrapped, he said. Medvedev called for recommendations from government agencies to be submitted
within two days.
"... In this respect, it is understandable that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the attack a provocation and an ambush. ..."
"... This is a conflict that Ankara triggered and while it is being managed it is not going to go away. ..."
"... USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:37 ..."
"... Yet another country Russia declares as "hostile" on the global stage : ) With only Assad, Hiz'bollah and Iran providing material comfort ..."
"... I just recorded my warnings to Russia over airspace violations in my bedroom. "Hello, you are heading in the wrong direction. Stop immediately!" No response whatsoever from the Russians. Can post the original recording if anyone is interested. ..."
"... Turkish claims that parts of the plane fell and injuried some Turks , it a joke too far. As is their uncorroborated claim about a warning. ..."
"... "The bearded, turban wearing throat-cutters danced around the dead body of the pilot whom they had killed while he was parachuting down. Is this your understanding of humanity, Ankara? Are these the ones you are protecting, Erdogan?" ..."
"... Yeah, it is fighting against another adventure of US/EU/those ME countries to have regime change to their liking in the region and against ISIS-which was created thanks to that adventure. ..."
"... The question, as posed in the article, is why, in a very short space of time Turkey decided to shoot down an aircraft whose identity they must have known? ..."
"... Erdogan admits giving the order, clear evidence of a deliberate set-up. ..."
"... A more interesting question than pointlessly discussing the morality of it, is what the motivation for the Turks was. I personally think that they wanted to derail the possibility of Russia making some type of détente with the West after the Paris attacks. ..."
"... In addition to son Bilal's illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdogan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdogan seems hell-bent on toppling. ..."
"... They were waiting for the Russian bomber to cross this tiny bit of Turkish airspace that extends far to the South into Syrian territory. The Turks wanted to make a statement. ..."
"... Are you serious? They could not be in a more suitable company - NATO members killed close to 5 million people since WWII worldwide, polluted the countries they attacked with uranium and therefore will kill another couple of millions in decades to come, their corrupted banks caused the world recession, their corrupt politicians make life bitter for both their citizens and people in countries their banks have issues with...this is a fucked up world, there are no good guys. ..."
"... Does it matter? in reality one does not shoot a partner on the fight against terrorists who burn people alive, chop their heads, rape women and sell kids into slavery, and if the fucking yanks are incapable of naming who are these moderates they are also fair game. ..."
"... The way I look at it is that the Turks had two tactics a) wanted the involvement of NATO and Putin did not oblige by starting a conflict with and b) wanting to defend its pals in ISIS and all the offshoots that these despicable people are represented by. ..."
"... The US and Turkey have very different purposes in Syria and Iraq. The US uses "Kurds" as its main force in both Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Since 2011 Erdogan has gone off the top and has resumed Turkey's war against the Kurds. That's all that matters to him. ..."
"... Both the US (through its Persian Gulf "friends") and Turkey were inventing and backing ISIS in 2011. The Russian newcomers began with steps that might save lives, but have also gotten caught up in the absurd US effort to remake the borders. More dead and refugees to follow. ..."
...Airspace incursions, granted usually in less politically tense contexts, happen all the time, and
generally you'd expect warning shots to be fired and then attempts to force the intruder to leave
or to land.
That the Turks shot down the jet and did so within 17 seconds – with the president, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, saying he gave the order to fire himself – suggests very strongly they were waiting for
a Russian plane to come into or close enough to Turkish airspace with the aim of delivering a
rather pyrotechnic message.
Turkish military releases audio recordings said to be warnings to Russian jet
In this respect, it is understandable that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called
the attack a provocation and an ambush.
... ... ...
Moscow may put greater emphasis on countering Turkey's efforts to establish regional influence
(Azerbaijan is an obvious place of contention) and could support problematic non-state actors
inside Turkey, from Kurds to criminals (at least, those criminals not already tied to the Turkish
state).
This is a conflict that Ankara triggered and while it is being managed it is not going to go
away. Nor is it just going to become another chapter in the histories of Russo-Ottoman
rivalry. Expect to see this play out in snide, deniable, but nonetheless bitter actions for
months to come.
samstheman 26 Nov 2015 10:40
How the West can excuse the reaction of Turkey to a 17 second incursion is beyond me
As for the Turkmen rebels killing the pilot as he descended in possible "self defence"
according to US State Department spokesman, please spare us the sophistry if such a
description is apt
Vladimir Makarenko -> Dweezle 26 Nov 2015 10:40
...to shoot fish in a barrel. Unarmed bomber going under 300 mph. Well, we see what kind of
training is really there now when Russians setting up S 400. This will be fun to watch,
especially for Kurds.
psygone USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:37
Yet another country Russia declares as "hostile" on the global stage : ) With only
Assad, Hiz'bollah and Iran providing material comfort - its became a rather comical
routine.
Nivedita 26 Nov 2015 10:37
It's obvious that Turkey shot the Russian plane to defend the ISIS barbarians. Why would
any decent country would want dangerous criminals like Turkey or GCC tyrants for allies?
copyniated 26 Nov 2015 10:36
I just recorded my warnings to Russia over airspace violations in my bedroom. "Hello,
you are heading in the wrong direction. Stop immediately!" No response whatsoever from the
Russians. Can post the original recording if anyone is interested.
SallyWa 26 Nov 2015 10:35
and could support problematic non-state actors inside Turkey, from Kurds. Are Kurds more
problematic than Turks? It seems they are more helpful, at least, when it comes to ISIS.
If_Not_Why_Not -> DarthPutinbot 26 Nov 2015 10:34
Russia denies it was in Turkish airspace. The wreckage was found well in Syria.(as were the
pilots.) Turkish claims that parts of the plane fell and injuried some Turks , it a joke too far.
As is their uncorroborated claim about a warning.
Both sides map production proves nothing also.
USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:30
I think that Mr. Erdogan will be terribly disappointed with what awaits him in the coming
months and years. And I find it positive that Russia is no longer necessary to keep moral
standards towards Turkey as Turkey never did it.
It is nice that Erdogan not even shows any condolences to those dead and their families.
Proves, that Turkey planned it in advance and it wasn't about airspace or accident.
FGMisNOTOK -> Hottentot 26 Nov 2015 10:29
You are totally correct. There is no way it could be done. They were waiting to fire on the
Russian plane as soon as it even slightly overshot the border. Give me a break... 17 seconds.
Turkey itself (as the article above says) claimed that this was no cause for attack when its
own planes flew over Syria. Hypocrites and liars.
photosymbiosis 26 Nov 2015 10:29
According to many reports, Erdogan's son is a central figure in ISIS cash-for-oil smuggling
into Turkey, (which is incidentally heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas imports, for which
they must pay full market price, unlike the 50% discount ISIS offers). Maps of the oil
smuggling routes to Turkey show that the oil tanker convoys must pass through "moderate rebel
anti-Assad" forces, to which should be appended, 'pro-ISIS?'
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-25/meet-man-who-funds-isis-bilal-erdogan-son-turkeys-president
"The reason we find this line of questioning fascinating is that just last week in the
aftermath of the French terror attack but long before the Turkish downing of the Russian
jet, we wrote about "The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking" in which
we asked who is the one "breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS
crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments,
and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS
for as long as it has?" - Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
So was this Turkey's effort to stop Russian attacks on the oil tanker convoys (which supply
ISIS with several million dollars a day - perhaps several hundred tanker trucks a day, that
is)? Is this retaliation by Erdogan for lost revenue?
In short, it appears at this point that the Turkish case justifying the use of deadly
force is, at best, weak. Nevertheless, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that
NATO stands "in solidarity with Turkey." However, it may have been more prudent to withhold
judgment until all the facts are definitively known and a full legal analysis is complete.
Why? Article 5 of the NATO treaty governing self-defense tracks almost exactly with the
Article 51 of the U.N. charter, so if the facts show illegality under international law,
that would undercut the wisdom of NATO standing "in solidarity" with any nation.
ChristianAnsgar -> Rahere2015 26 Nov 2015 10:27
You missed the shooting of the pilots while parachuting bit in your rant,isn't that a war
crime?
cheetah43 26 Nov 2015 11:08
"The bearded, turban wearing throat-cutters danced around the dead body of the pilot
whom they had killed while he was parachuting down. Is this your understanding of humanity,
Ankara? Are these the ones you are protecting, Erdogan?" - Russian Foreign Office
spokeswoman today during press briefing.
SallyWa -> MTavernier 26 Nov 2015 11:07
Russia is fighting a different, conflicting war to everyone else in Syria.
Yeah, it is fighting against another adventure of US/EU/those ME countries to have
regime change to their liking in the region and against ISIS-which was created thanks to that
adventure.
Russia repeatedly violated Turkish airspace,
Turkey should learn from better countries how to act in this. European ones. They showed
proper examples, while Turkey screwed up.
dyatel42 26 Nov 2015 11:07
It's almost as if Turkey was waiting for an SU24 to stray over it's border for a few
seconds. How could they have issued 10 warnings to turn south in 17 seconds and asked the
president for his OK to shoot it down in that time? Fairy stories. Given that the aircraft
fell into Syria it must have been heading there when it was hit and was obviously not on a
surprise mission to bomb Ankara for example. Two men's lives terminated for no real reason at
all.
It would seem possible that Turkey was acting on a request from the USA to carry out this
murderous attack - what other logical reason could they have had to do it? Given the US hatred
of Russia / The Soviet Union and their growing irritation at Russia's involvement in Syria,
(at the request of the ruling government of that country) it would be a way of punishing Putin
without putting their own aircraft at risk from retaliation and possibly a dangerous
escalation in the ongoing American persecution of Russia.
ID4352889 -> MTavernier 26 Nov 2015 11:06
And obviously you were in the cockpit to verify the warning that has been belatedly claimed
by a notorious terror state which has been in cahoots with Daesh all along?
Hoppolocos -> MTavernier 26 Nov 2015 11:03
As is usual in these cases it may be they are both telling a version of the truth, credible
deniability? The Turks may well have broadcast warnings, but on which frequency? The Russians
may have elected to not be listening to any frequency the Turks may use ergo it's the other's
that were at fault. The question, as posed in the article, is why, in a very short space
of time Turkey decided to shoot down an aircraft whose identity they must have known?
In the current situation the possibility of an aircraft straying into the wrong airspace
must be a consideration, thus as strong diplomatic protect would have seemed the more obvious
reaction. Have there been such incursions in the recent past? Has Russia been pushing it's
luck? If not then one has the feeling that Turkey is deliberately trying to push it's luck and
push Russia away from the Turkmen bases. Would they have dared if they weren't confident of
NATO support and if so, who has allowed them to think this would automatically be forthcoming
given the circumstances?
Roger Hudson -> Ipek Ruacan 26 Nov 2015 11:00
Turkey violates Syrian airspace at will, it also violated Greek airspace over 2000 times
last year.
The Russian plane flew over a small 'appendix' of true Turkey that is 2 miles wide, somebody
worked out a jet can't fly slow enough to do it in 17 seconds. How long did the warning
take?.' Erdogan admits giving the order, clear evidence of a deliberate set-up.
kritter 26 Nov 2015 11:00
Galeotti talks about this like there are good guys and bad buys here, when clearly there
aren't.
It is simply another play in a proxy war between two very countries, led by two very similar
presidents. A more interesting question than pointlessly discussing the morality of it, is
what the motivation for the Turks was. I personally think that they wanted to derail the
possibility of Russia making some type of détente with the West after the Paris attacks.
fireangel 26 Nov 2015 10:58
The smashing of ISIS' oil industry will not only be a blow to the entire ISIS death squad
project, but will directly affect Turkey, widely thought to be involved in the transportation
of ISIS-produced oil, and even Erdogan's family itself, as it is the company run by his son
Bilal that is believed to be running the illicit trade.
Well well well....Bilan Erdogan
*Bilal Erdo?an owns several maritime companies. He has allegedly signed contracts with
European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. The
Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil
wells. Bilal Erdo?an's maritime companies own special wharfs in Beirut and Ceyhan ports that
are transporting ISIS' smuggled crude oil in Japan-bound oil tankers.*
In addition to son Bilal's illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdogan,
the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey
just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS
Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the
testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member
of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdogan seems
hell-bent on toppling.
camerashy -> blogbath 26 Nov 2015 10:58
Listen, as an American I'm telling you, you're wrong and a victim of the billionaire owned
propaganda machine they call the news media. You've got your facts all wrong, it's the US
who's constantly sticking it to Russia/others because somehow we can't stand anyone opposing
us and has independent opinions. From the cooked up US backed coup in Ukraine to provoking
China in Asia, and shooting down Russian jets over Syria, look no further than the US/NATO
alliance to find your answer.
Erdogan on his own couldn't kill time let alone shooting down Russian jets. Just imagine
what would happen if one of our jets had been shot down, they'd have made movies on it
already. Also I don't think you really know much about any of these other countries you so
freely label! Don't be naive, things aren't always what they seem, you have access to the
Internet, well, don't take my word for it, use it and find out from different sources ...
here's one:
Please note with the level of happiness and delight with which British journalists and
readers described as the two nations will destroy each other
There is nothing jolly about it, actually. Even this article says situation is not looking
hunky dory, it could fester underneath for quite some time.
secondiceberg 26 Nov 2015 10:54
1. "Smuggling weapons in the guise of humanitarian convoys (something we saw the Russians
doing in Ukraine)". The constant repetition of unfounded charges against Russia seem to have
become engrained in arsenal of MSM writers. If they have received and read the OSCE daily
reports from Ukraine, they should note that those humanitarian convoys were opened and
examined at a Russian checkpoint, at Customs, and by a Ukrainian checkpoint before crossing
the border. If the Ukrainian officials found any weapons, where is the evidence?
2. "Turks are acting in support of their national interests in Syria with equal ruthlessness."
An objective journalist would balance this with the claim by Russia and others that the Turks
are illegally buying oil from ISIS, thereby funding them and that their "interests" are in
continuing to buttress ISIS existence and actions. We still wait for journalistic
investigation of the information given to G20 leaders that some of their own countries are
similarly buying oil from ISIS thus keeping funding for that group flowing and giving them
strong incentive not to "defeat" ISIS despite their ostensible reason for bombing Syria in the
first place.
3. When are we going to find out exactly who the "moderate" Syrian rebels are? And where is
the investigation regarding Putin's claim that a lot of the groups fighting with ISIS and
against the Assad regime are, in fact, mercenaries?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQuceU3x2Ww
Newmacfan 26 Nov 2015 10:54
But it took longer than that according to Mr Erdogan, so many warnings, so many different
time parameters quoted by Turkey, even their own maps would suggest that there was not enough
time to warn the aircraft, await a reply, fire the weapon and for it to hit the target within
the time it was in Turkeys air space, according to Mr Erdogan......in short it is a pack of
lies, like the ISIS oil, the porous borders, this is something which should be followed up.
There is more to this and Turkeys connection with ISIS and the destabilisation of Syria that
warrants a cursory glance.....something possibly very deep and very nasty could well be
lurking here and it would be foolhardy not to look!
LiviaDrusilla -> If_Not_Why_Not 26 Nov 2015 10:51
My only doubt is, did NATO know of this before hand?
Good question. I think the answer is 'no'.
To me, it's fairly obvious that the Turks had itchy fingers waiting for a chance to shoot down
a Russian jet on the pretext of 'invading their airspace'. They then hoped to trigger the NATO
'an attack on one is an attack on all' clause, something which would, at the very least, lead
to the closure of the Bosphurus to Russian shipping, hence making it extremely difficult for
them to re-supply their troops. Look at how the very first thing they did was run crying to
NATO.
However, it appears their cunning plan backfired. Even the Americans seemed to want to play
down the 'violation', saying that the Russian jet was only over Turkish airspace for a grand
total of 17 minutes. So Erdogan didn't get the declaration of war he has hoping for, and
Turkey is now almost certain to be subjected to various retaliatory measures by Russia.
Bad move, Erdogan. Bad move.
IndependentScott -> raffine 26 Nov 2015 10:50
Wrong. The Turks can shoot down one single plane. They were waiting for the Russian
bomber to cross this tiny bit of Turkish airspace that extends far to the South into Syrian
territory. The Turks wanted to make a statement.
The Islamic extremists on the ground, be it ISIS or Al Qaeda (in this case it was an Al Qaeda
affiliate) cannot do anything against the planes. They do not have anti aircraft weapons which
are effective.
nishville -> UralMan 26 Nov 2015 10:52
Now that we have established that Ankara is as murderous, cheating, morally corrupt
and evil as Moscow, what are the reasons nowadays for Turkey to remain a member of the NATO
Are you serious? They could not be in a more suitable company - NATO members killed
close to 5 million people since WWII worldwide, polluted the countries they attacked with
uranium and therefore will kill another couple of millions in decades to come, their corrupted
banks caused the world recession, their corrupt politicians make life bitter for both their
citizens and people in countries their banks have issues with...this is a fucked up world,
there are no good guys.
mkwasp -> will2010 26 Nov 2015 10:48
The radar tracks of both sides show the downed plane flying parallel to the frontier, not
into Turkey. Regardless of where it actually was (i.e which track is correct, if either of
them were), it manifestly wasn't threatening Turkey. Turkey can't really claim provocation
here. Le Monde is also reporting that the Turkish pilots couldn't identify the plane they shot
at - which is even more worrying, given very few (US, French, Russian) air forces are
operating over Syria.
IndependentScott 26 Nov 2015 10:48
Russia is bombing Turkmen. Turkey is protecting them.
The problem is, these Turkmen are allies of Al Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate which is strong
right next to the Turkmen areas. They, alongside the Islamic Front in the area, are fighting
Assad troops just a few km away from the largest Russian navel base outside of Russia. Of
course, Russia is bombing them. And of course Turkey wants to protect them.
Whether or not that Su-24 actually passed through Turkish airspace for 17 secs or not is
completely irrelevant. This was a statement by Turkey to its own people and the Turkmens in
the area that they will "help their fellow Turks".
The real awful thing is that a Russian pilot died in the process.
USer5555 26 Nov 2015 10:48
Please note with the level of happiness and delight with which British journalists and
readers described as the two nations will destroy each other. Something like that British
journalists probably experienced in 1941, when Adolf Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, and
Turkey, by the way, was with him in alliance.
callaspodeaspode -> anatianblogger 26 Nov 2015 10:42
It is a decent bit of kit, even though old, but it not equipped to fend off fighters in
actual combat. It will presumably have some ECM and ability to dispense flares to act as decoy
when attacked by heat-seeking missiles, but I've no idea how effective it is against Western
NATO standard fighters like up to date block versions of F-16s, which Turkey uses.
And it certainly isn't capable of 2000mph. I don't know where you get that from.
That's nearly Mach 3. Very few military aircraft are able to go at such speeds.
The Fencers top out at around Mach 1.35 at altitude. Are you perhaps confusing it with a
Mig-31 fighter?
What I want to know is why the Turkish F16s didn't fly alongside to make themselves visually
present and demand to the Russian pilots that they leave the area and then escort them out.
Like the UK's Typhoons do when Russian bombers come too near.
spearsshallbebroken -> anarxist 26 Nov 2015 10:19
Does it matter? in reality one does not shoot a partner on the fight against terrorists
who burn people alive, chop their heads, rape women and sell kids into slavery, and if the
fucking yanks are incapable of naming who are these moderates they are also fair game.
The way I look at it is that the Turks had two tactics a) wanted the involvement of
NATO and Putin did not oblige by starting a conflict with and b) wanting to defend its pals in
ISIS and all the offshoots that these despicable people are represented by.
I think the unrepresented swill that is Turkey is going to be done very slowly by Putin.
Leondeinos 26 Nov 2015 10:17
The US and Turkey have very different purposes in Syria and Iraq. The US uses "Kurds"
as its main force in both Iraq and Syria. Once again the Kurds are being used and soon
will be pounded by all hands. Five years ago Turkey was declaring its desire to be at peace
with all its neighbors and doing well at it. It stayed out of the American invasion of Iraq in
2003. Since 2011 Erdogan has gone off the top and has resumed Turkey's war against the
Kurds. That's all that matters to him.
Both the US (through its Persian Gulf "friends") and Turkey were inventing and backing
ISIS in 2011. The Russian newcomers began with steps that might save lives, but have also
gotten caught up in the absurd US effort to remake the borders. More dead and refugees to
follow.
It's easy to make a handy ex post facto recording of pilots talking. Happens all the time
after premeditated air attacks.
anarxist 26 Nov 2015 10:11
Are you sure about the 17 seconds? Does anyone do the math here?
1.15 miles / 17 seconds x 60 x 60 = 243 miles/hour = 391 km/hour
The Su-24's max speed is 1,320 km/hour.
So if we assume the Su-24 was actually going much faster, was 17 seconds more like 5
seconds? Or perhaps even less?
Russia Thursday said its forces had wiped out Syrian rebel groups operating in the area where
one of its jets was brought down, unleashing a huge bombardment after rescuing a pilot.
"As soon as our pilot was safe, Russian bombers and artillery of the Syrian government forces
carried out massive strikes in the indicated area for an extended period," military official Igor
Konashenkov told Russian news agencies.
"The terrorists operating in that area and other mysterious groups were destroyed," he said.
Turkey on Tuesday shot down a Russian jet in northern Syria alleging that it had crossed over
into its air space and sparking a war of words with Moscow.
One pilot that parachuted out was later rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces, while a
second pilot from the jet and a soldier sent to rescue him were killed by rebels on the ground.
Konsahenkov said that over the past three days its jets carried out 134 combat sorties over the
war-torn country and struck 449 targets in the Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib, Latakia, Hama and Homs
and Deir al-Zor provinces.
ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that Turkey would have acted
differently if it had known that a warplane its forces downed on the Syrian border this week was
Russian.
"If we had known if it was a Russian plane maybe we would have warned it differently," Erdogan
told France 24 television, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not answered his call
after Tuesday's incident that has seriously damaged ties.
"... In the real world most credit today is spent to buy assets already in place, not to create new productive capacity. Some 80 percent of bank loans in the English-speaking world are real estate mortgages, and much of the balance is lent against stocks and bonds already issued. ..."
"... Debt-leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate purchases turn business cash flow (ebitda: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) into interest payments. Likewise, bank or bondholder financing of public debt (especially in the Eurozone, which lacks a central bank to monetize such debt) has turned a rising share of tax revenue into interest payments. ..."
"... even government tax revenue is diverted to pay debt service ..."
"... Contemporary evidence for major OECD economies since the 1980s shows that rising capital gains may indeed divert finance away from the real sector's productivity growth (Stockhammer 2004) and more generally that 'financialization' (Epstein 2005) has hurt growth and incomes. Money created for capital gains has a small propensity to be spent by their rentier owners on goods and services, so that an increasing proportion of the economy's money flows are diverted to circulation in the financial sector. Wages do not increase, even as prices for property and financial securities rise – just the well-known trend that we have seen in the Western world since the 1970s, and which persists into the post-2001 Bubble Economy. ..."
Incorporating the Rentier Sectors into a Financial Model
Wednesday, September
12, 2012
by Dirk Bezemer and Michael Hudson
As published in the World Economic Association's World Economic Review Vol #1.
.......
2. Finance is not The economy
In the real world most credit today is spent to buy assets already in place, not to create
new productive capacity. Some 80 percent of bank loans in the English-speaking world are real estate
mortgages, and much of the balance is lent against stocks and bonds already issued.
Banks lend to buyers of real estate, corporate raiders, ambitious financial empire-builders, and
to management for debt-leveraged buyouts. A first approximation of this trend is to chart the share
of bank lending that goes to the 'Fire, Insurance and Real Estate' sector, aka the nonbank financial
sector. Graph 1 shows that its ratio to GDP has quadrupled since the 1950s. The contrast is with
lending to the real sector, which has remained about constant relative to GDP. This is how our debt
burden has grown.
Graph 1: Private debt growth is due to lending to the FIRE sector: the US, 1952-2007
Source: Bezemer (2012) based on US flow of fund data, BEA 'Z' tables.
What is true for America is true for many other countries: mortgage lending and other household
debt have been 'the final stage in an artificially extended Ponzi Bubble' as Keen (2009) shows for
Australia. Extending credit to purchase assets already in place bids up their price. Prospective
homebuyers need to take on larger mortgages to obtain a home. The effect is to turn property rents
into a flow of mortgage interest. These payments divert the revenue of consumers and businesses from
being spent on consumption or new capital investment. The effect is deflationary for the economy's
product markets, and hence consumer prices and employment, and therefore wages. This is why we had
a long period of low cpi inflation but skyrocketing asset price inflation. The two trends are linked.
Debt-leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate purchases turn business cash flow (ebitda: earnings
before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) into interest payments. Likewise, bank or
bondholder financing of public debt (especially in the Eurozone, which lacks a central bank to monetize
such debt) has turned a rising share of tax revenue into interest payments.
As creditors recycle
their receipts of interest and amortization (and capital gains) into new lending to buyers of real
estate, stocks and bonds, a rising share of employee income, real estate rent, business revenue and
even government tax revenue is diverted to pay debt service. By leaving less to spend on goods and
services, the effect is to reduce new investment and employment.
Contemporary evidence for major
OECD economies since the 1980s shows that rising capital gains may indeed divert finance away from
the real sector's productivity growth (Stockhammer 2004) and more generally that 'financialization'
(Epstein 2005) has hurt growth and incomes. Money created for capital gains has a small propensity
to be spent by their rentier owners on goods and services, so that an increasing proportion of the
economy's money flows are diverted to circulation in the financial sector. Wages do not increase,
even as prices for property and financial securities rise – just the well-known trend that we have
seen in the Western world since the 1970s, and which persists into the post-2001 Bubble Economy.
It is especially the case since 1991 in the post-Soviet economies, where neoliberal (that is,
pro-financial) policy makers have had a free hand to shape tax and financial policy in favor of banks
(mainly foreign bank branches). Latvia is cited as a neoliberal success story, but it would be hard
to find an example where rentier income and prices have diverged more sharply from wages and the
"real" production economy.
The more credit creation takes the form of inflating asset prices – rather than financing purchases
of goods and services or direct investment employing labor – the more deflationary its effects are
on the "real" economy of production and consumption. Housing and other asset prices crash, causing
negative equity. Yet homeowners and businesses still have to pay off their debts. The national income
accounts classify this pay-down as "saving," although the revenue is not available to the debtors
doing the "saving" by "deleveraging."
The moral is that using homes as what Alan Greenspan referred to as "piggy banks", to take out
home-equity loans, was not really like drawing down a bank account at all. When a bank account is
drawn down there is less money available, but no residual obligation to pay. New income can be spent
at the discretion of its recipient. But borrowing against a home implies an obligation to set aside
future income to pay the banker – and hence a loss of future discretionary spending.
3. Towards a model of financialized economies
Creating a more realistic model of today's financialized economies to trace this phenomenon requires
a breakdown of the national income and product accounts (NIPA) to see the economy as a set of distinct
sectors interacting with each other. These accounts juxtapose the private and public sectors as far
as current spending, saving and taxation is concerned. But the implication is that government budget
deficits inflate the private-sector economy as a whole.
...Ankara and Moscow, given their diametrically opposed political and operational roadmaps for
the conflict in Syria, have been on a clashing trajectory since Russia entered the Syrian military
fray last September. One of Russia's many objectives in Syria is to cut into Turkish influence in
order to boost the Assad regime, and now that they are in each other's crosshairs, more clashes directly
or via proxies seem inevitable.
...Moscow is attempting to shore up the authoritarian security structure of the Assad regime as
it flirts with key minorities, while Turkey has pitted itself on the side of the anti-Assad rebels
and is embracing the Islamist factions from the country's Sunni majority.
...Almost
1.5 million
Syrians are members of the Turkmen community, including the head of the largest Syrian opposition
coalition Khaled Khoja. The Turkmen community is historically, linguistically and culturally close
to Turkey and their brigades are critical in the fighting against both Assad and ISIS. If Turkey
has any hopes of securing a 100-km long safe zone "west of the Euphrates River and reaching into
the province of Aleppo" as reported last summer by the
Washington Post, the weight of governing and securing it from ISIS and Assad would fall on the
Turkmen brigades, Ahrar Sham and Kurdish forces cooperating with Ankara.
...In their statements from the White House on Tuesday, both U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and
his French counterpart Francois Hollande called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to focus his
strikes on ISIS and refrain from targeting the rebel forces near Turkey's border. Hollande even hinted
indirectly at possibility of a humanitarian safe zone, stating that "Turkey plays an important role,
and it is together with Turkey that we must find solutions so that the refugees can stay close to
their country of origin." Erdogan went a step further, saying Ankara "will soon put into practice
humanitarian safe zone between Jarablus and Mediterranean coast" according to CNN Turk.
Easier set than done, however, as the task of securing any safe zone in Syria and managing the
day to day services will be threatened by both Russia's and Assad's air force, as well as questions
surrounding the opposition's ability to govern those areas.
... ... ...
_________________ Joyce Karam is the Washington Correspondent for Al-Hayat Newspaper, an International Arabic Daily
based in London. She has covered American politics extensively since 2004 with focus on U.S. policy
towards the Middle East. Prior to that, she worked as a Journalist in Lebanon, covering the Post-war
situation. Joyce holds a B.A. in Journalism and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution.
Twitter: @Joyce_Karam
It' unclear who in the West exactly is supporting IISIS/ISIL and Al Nusra.
Notable quotes:
"... Both Obama and Hollande, however, insisted that a political transition in Syria must lead to Assad's departure. Russia, on the other hand, has been Assad's staunchest ally. ..."
French President Francois Hollande told Russia's Vladimir Putin on Thursday that world powers
must create a "grand coalition" to combat Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters
who control swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
...Germany, meanwhile, has decided to send reconnaissance aircraft, tanker planes and a
warship to help in the fight against ISIL.
Following his meeting with the French president, Obama said Russian cooperation in the fight
against IS would be "enormously helpful." Both Obama and Hollande, however, insisted that a
political transition in Syria must lead to Assad's departure. Russia, on the other hand, has been
Assad's staunchest ally.
Last week, Hollande called for the U.S. and Russia to set aside their policy divisions over Syria
and "fight this terrorist army in a broad, single coalition." But his office acknowledges that
"coordination" sounds like a far more realistic goal.
The most interesting part is " President Putin even suggested that Turkey had shot down the
Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the US." The USA
elite like British elite in the past are master of."
To pull the hot potato from the hot ashes using
somebody else hands" Taking into account Obama
warnings, t he USA government was clearly interested that such accident happened and may well
play the role of facilitators via
AWACS planes
(according to Russian military two were in the air: one from Turkish and one for Saudis side) Erdogan
is now lying trying to avoid consequences: consequences that are extremely beneficial to the USA not
so much to Turkey and Erdogan personally. In other words Sultan of Turkey was used. And the events
are very detrimental to Russians. But Russians are masters to even the game even when they
have bad cards on hands. The incident is bad for Turkey and Erdogan in sense that it highlighted the
fact that Turkey is the chief sponsor of radicals (the assertion provable by the available facts)
and one of the major financial backer of ISIS and Al Nusra. It also
highlighted the fact that Erdogan son is involved in smuggling oil from ISIS. "A stab in Russia's
back by the accomplices of terrorists." is a very precise description of what happened.
"There was no warning. Not via radio, or visually. There was no contact at all," the surviving
co-pilot of the plane told journalists, safely back at Russia's airbase in Syria after his emergency
mid-air ejection. He says the jet was shot down from behind. "If they had wanted to warn us, then
they could have shown themselves - flown in parallel," Captain Murakhtin said.
President Putin has already accused Ankara of siding with Islamic State (IS) by hitting the Russian
jet; he also claimed some in Turkey are benefitting from the illicit sale of IS oil exports.
The message to Turkey and its allies is clear: don't dare try it
again.
Notable quotes:
"... Speaking at a news conference after the talks, President Putin even suggested that Turkey had shot down the Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the US. ..."
"... Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected calls by Russia to apologise, saying Turkey does not need to say sorry for the violation of its airspace. ..."
"... But Mr Putin insisted it was impossible for Turkey not to have known it was shooting at a Russian plane. It's got insignia, and you can see that very clearly . He went on: In advance, in accordance with our agreement with the US, we gave information on where our planes would be working - at what altitude, and in what areas. Turkey is part of that coalition and they had to know it was the Russian airforce working in that area. ..."
Russia has rejected Turkey's claims that it did not know the plane it shot down on the Syria
border was Russian.
President Vladimir Putin said Russian planes were easily identifiable and the jet's flight
co-ordinates had been passed on to Turkey's ally, the US.
Turkey's president said earlier if it had known the plane was Russian "maybe we would have warned
it differently".
Mr Putin was speaking after meeting his French counterpart and pledging closer co-operation
against Islamic State.
Russia and France have agreed to co-operate more closely in fighting terrorism in Syria. The
two countries will exchange intelligence on Islamic State - and co-ordinate air strikes.
But differences remain over the fate of the Syrian leader. President Hollande made it clear that
Bashar al-Assad could play no role in his country's future. President Putin said that was up to
the Syrian people to decide.
And there is no sign of the kind of "grand coalition" against terror that France had been calling
for, one that would include America.
Speaking at a news conference after the talks, President Putin even suggested that Turkey had
shot down the Russian bomber this week after receiving information about its location from the
US.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected calls by Russia to apologise, saying
Turkey does not need to say sorry for the violation of its airspace. However, he told
France 24 television: "If we had known it was a Russian plane, maybe we would have warned it
differently".
But Mr Putin insisted it was "impossible" for Turkey not to have known it was shooting at
a Russian plane. "It's got insignia, and you can see that very clearly". He went on: "In advance,
in accordance with our agreement with the US, we gave information on where our planes would be
working - at what altitude, and in what areas. Turkey is part of that coalition and they had to
know it was the Russian airforce working in that area.
"If it was an American aircraft, would they have struck?"
Earlier on Thursday, Russia's military suspended all communication channels with the Turkish
military, including a "hot line" to help avoid air accidents.
Russia's prime minister also warned the government was planning wide-ranging economic
sanctions against Turkey within the coming days.
He warned that food products, Turkish interests in Russia and a number of joint investment
projects could be affected.
Russia has also advised its nationals against visiting Turkey, and urged those already there to
return home "due to the terrorist threats that remain on Turkish territory".
Turkey and Russia have important economic links. Russia is Turkey's second largest trading
partner, while Turkey is the biggest foreign destination for Russian tourists.
On the ground inside Syria the changes have been more immediate. A cruiser has been despatched
to help bolster air defences around the Russian base. The sophisticated S400 anti aircraft system
is also being deployed and Russian planes will now be protected on bombing raids by fighter jets.
The message to Turkey and its allies is clear: don't dare try it again. As for the rescued
co-pilot, he says he is impatient to return to the skies. "I want to stay here," he said,
referring to the Russian airbase. "I want payback for my commander."
Neoliberalism counterattacked and scored a victory in Argentina. the trick is to use economic
difficulties caused by neoliberalism to bring to power a neoliberal candidate (or more liberal
candidate, if the current was already neoliberal buy stayed Washington consensus). That trick was
used previously in Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington has maintained a policy of "rollback" and "containment" against almost all of the left governments that have won elections in the 21st century. So there is quite a bit of excitement here among the business and foreign policy elite ..."
"... Argentina and the region have changed too much over the past 15 years to return to the neoliberal, neocolonial past. The Washington foreign policy establishment may not understand this, but Macri's handlers did. That's why they took the trouble to package him as something very different from what he is. ..."
"... State Corruption is ever and always a pre text for reassertion of plutocratic hegemony ..."
The election of right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri as Argentina's president on Sunday, which
just a few months ago was unexpected, is a setback for Argentina and for the region.
... ... ...
Washington has maintained a policy of "rollback" and "containment" against almost all of
the left governments that have won elections in the 21st century. So there is quite a bit of
excitement here among the business and foreign policy elite, with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff facing a recession
and political crisis, and Venezuela's Chavismo confronting an economic crisis and possible loss of
its first national election in 17 years. So naturally they are happy about this unprecedented right-wing
electoral victory in Argentina. Articles are already sprouting up, welcoming the long-awaited demise
of the Latin American left.
But reports of this demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are somewhat exaggerated. A more likely outcome
is like that of Chile, where a lackluster candidate was unable to take advantage of Socialist Party
President Michelle Bachelet's 80 percent approval rating, and lost to a right-wing billionaire in
2010. He lasted four years, and then the country went back to Bachelet.
Argentina and the region have changed too much over the past 15 years to return to the neoliberal,
neocolonial past. The Washington foreign policy establishment may not understand this, but Macri's
handlers did. That's why they took the trouble to package him as something very different from what
he is.
Argentine Election a Setback, But Not Likely to Reverse Latin America's 21st Century Trend
By Mark Weisbrot
The election of right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri as Argentina's president on Sunday, which
just a few months ago was unexpected, is a setback for Argentina and for the region. In the last
13 years, Argentina had made enormous economic and social progress. Under the Kirchners (first
Néstor and then Cristina Fernández de Kirchner), poverty fell by about 70 percent, and extreme
poverty by 80 percent. (This is for 2003 to mid-2013, the last year for which independent estimates
are available; they are also based on independent estimates of inflation.) Unemployment fell from
more than 17.2 percent to 6.9 percent , according to the IMF.
But Daniel Scioli, the candidate of the Peronist "Front for Victory", who represented the governing
coalition including President Fernández, did not do a good job defending these achievements. He
also didn't seem to make clear what he would do to fix the country's current economic problems.
In the past four years, growth has been slow (averaging about 1.1 percent annually), inflation
has been high (with private estimates in the 20s), and a black market for the dollar has developed.
This gave Macri (and his "Cambiemos" or "Let's Change" coalition) an opening to present himself
as the candidate of a better future.
With skilled marketing help from an Ecuadorean public relations firm, he also succeeded in
defining himself as something far more moderate than he is likely to be, thus winning over voters
who might otherwise be afraid of a return to the pre-Kirchner depression years.
Some of the things he has indicated he would do could have a positive impact, if done correctly.
He will likely cut a deal with vulture funds who have been holding more than 90 percent of Argentina's
creditors hostage since New York judge Thomas Griesa ruled in 2014 that the government is not
allowed to pay them. If the cost is not too high, it could be a net positive by re-opening a path
for Argentina to return to international borrowing - something that Scioli would likely have also
done.
A liberalization of the exchange rate that got rid of the black market could be a big step
forward. But much depends on how it is done: If it causes inflation to spike and the government
does nothing to protect poor and working people, they could lose a lot.
Macri may also take measures to bring down inflation, which is something that needs to be done.
But here especially there are great dangers, because he is likely to do so by shrinking the economy.
He wants to reduce the central government budget deficit, which will grow as a percent of GDP
with austerity. Given his ideology and politics, there is serious risk of a downward spiral of
austerity and recession, as the country suffered from 1998-2001. If there is inflation from the
devaluation, and they are eager to get rid of that too, this could make matters worse.
His campaign statements and positions indicate that he is against a government role in promoting
industry, so the country's development is likely to suffer as a result. He has proposed tax cuts
for upper- income groups, and so budget cuts are likely since he has pledged to reduce the government
budget deficit. If you add it all up, the majority of Argentines are likely to suffer from any
economic transition that he can engineer.
But he will not have a working majority in Congress, so it remains to be seen how much he can
do. Internationally, he has moved immediately to demonstrate his overwhelming loyalty to the United
States government, which had been previously demonstrated in confidential U.S. embassy cables
published by WikiLeaks. One of his very first statements after being elected was to denounce Venezuela
and threaten to have them suspended from Mercosur. Since this is not an issue that was pressing
to Argentine voters, it is clear that it is part of the U.S.-led international campaign leading
up to Venezuela's December 6 elections, which seeks to delegitimize the government and the elections.
Macri's willingness to join this campaign is something that no other South American president
would do. On the contrary, in the past decade South American presidents have repeatedly joined
together to defend democracy in the region when it was under attack, with Washington on the other
side - not only in Venezuela, in 2014, 2013, and 2002; but in but in Bolivia (2008); Honduras
(2009); Ecuador (2010); and Paraguay (2012). If Macri continues down this road, he will not only
bring shame to Argentina, but he will damage hemispheric relations.
Washington has maintained a policy of "rollback" and "containment" against almost all of the
left governments that have won elections in the 21st century. So there is quite a bit of excitement
here among the business and foreign policy elite, with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff facing
a recession and political crisis, and Venezuela's Chavismo confronting an economic crisis and
possible loss of its first national election in 17 years. So naturally they are happy about this
unprecedented right-wing electoral victory in Argentina. Articles are already sprouting up, welcoming
the long-awaited demise of the Latin American left.
But reports of this demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are somewhat exaggerated. A more likely
outcome is like that of Chile, where a lackluster candidate was unable to take advantage of Socialist
Party President Michelle Bachelet's 80 percent approval rating, and lost to a right-wing billionaire
in 2010. He lasted four years, and then the country went back to Bachelet.
Argentina and the region have changed too much over the past 15 years to return to the neoliberal,
neocolonial past. The Washington foreign policy establishment may not understand this, but Macri's
handlers did. That's why they took the trouble to package him as something very different from
what he is.
Narwhal -> anne:
too much here to comment on.
Weisbrot couches his analysis in right vs left wing politics which played only a minor part.
The election was about the incompetence of the Kirchners. Argentinians have had enough and
finally kicked the incompetents out.
"with Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff facing a recession and political crisis" THAT HER INCOMPETENCE
AND TOTAL CORRUPTION CAUSED....the vast majority has had enough.
Has this guy actually visited Argentina and Brazil...
anne -> Narwhal:
Do set down a focused argument and references when possible.
When "incompetence" and "total corruption" assertions are made, and even capitalized, they
should be referenced. As for the "vast majority" in Argentina who had had enough, would that be
the 51.4% who voted for President Macri?
Narwhal -> anne:
Sorry, Anne, I am not going to post a university research paper with references and footnotes
(been there and done that).
Argentine politics are so convoluted that I do not pretend to understand them. Suffice to say
that the are far more nuanced than simple liberal vs conservative. Only that those of us here
in Brazil breathed huge sigh of relief when the election results were announced.
OTOH his indirect references to Brazil showed even less knowledge of the region. I have made a very small attempt to give readers a tiny view of the Brazilian politics and
corruption in my other comment.
anne -> Narwhal:
On the other hand [Mark Weisbrot's] indirect references to Brazil showed even less knowledge
of the region.
[ I set down the direct references to Brazil by Mark Weisbrot, Franklin Serrano and Ricardo
Summa. Possibly the work they have done on Brazil reflects little knowledge as supposedly the
work done by Weisbrot on Argentina does, but I find the work carefully done and persuasive. ]
PPaine -> anne:
He has none. He's reacting like the usual middle brow bourgeois. Whatever he or she really is
Nuance here is just enough muddle to confuse the outsider. So long as that outsider salivates with every reference to corruption and incompetence
PPaine -> Narwhal:
No don't hide the hand grenade here. This is class struggle. Nuances are nonsense. State Corruption is ever and always a pre text for reassertion of plutocratic hegemony
The point will be clear once this agent of the haute bourgeoise.
Starts rectifying more then a decade of improved welfare systematics
anne -> PPaine :
State Corruption is ever and always a pre text for reassertion of plutocratic hegemony
The point will be clear once this agent of the haute bourgeoise
Starts rectifying more then a decade of improved welfare systematics
[ Interesting and all too reasonable historically for Latin America. ]
-- the real has devalued from about 2.1/US$ to 3.6/US$ today.
--bribes and kickbacks from Petrobras amounting to uncounted HUNDREDS of billions of reais
had their origin when President Dilma was Chairwoman of the Board of Directors.
--Ex President Lula's closest aid is serving a jail term for corruption. The government's leader
in the Senate was arrested today... the list goes on.
--The government took no steps to prevent the ecological disaster of two dam collapses this
month. Many are dead and will never be found or even counted. Thousands are homeless. 60 million
tons of toxic mud have completely destroyed 400 km of the Rio Doce. The mud reached the sea Sunday
and is now killing the ocean habitat.
--Pres Dilma signed a decree declarion the disaster an act of god, thereby absolving the mining
companies and the government of all legal responsibility.
PPaine -> anne:
The economist -- Now there's a source we can rely on --
Brazil Needs New Economic Program to Jump-Start Growth and Employment
By Mark Weisbrot
Finance Minister Joaquim Levy says that unemployment is going to increase in Brazil and that
Brazilians should "face some realities." No country should have a finance minister with this attitude
towards one of its population's most important needs – employment. And even worse, someone who
is acting on these twisted beliefs in order to make them reality. His own job should be the first
to go.
The vast majority of Brazilians are still hugely better off than they were before the Workers
Party assumed the presidency in January of 2003. Poverty was reduced by 55 percent and extreme
poverty by 65 percent from 2003-2012 and real (inflation-adjusted) wages grew by 35 percent –
including a doubling of the real minimum wage. From 2004-2010, the economy grew twice as fast
as it had over the previous 23 years, and the gains from growth were much more equally distributed.
But these gains are being eroded, as the economy sinks into recession and unemployment rises.
Why has this happened? A new report * by Brazilian economists Franklin Serrano and Ricardo Summa
shows that it is not primarily due to external factors – for example, the slowdown of global economic
growth and trade. Rather it is mainly a result of government policies that have reduced aggregate
demand since the end of 2010: tighter budgets, cuts in public investment, higher interest rates,
and tighter credit.
Austerity is not working in Brazil -- any more than it has been working in Europe. These policies
are not only creating unnecessary unemployment and poverty in the present, they are also sacrificing
Brazil's future. Brazil needs public investment in transportation and other infrastructure, but
this is the spending that is first to be sacrificed.
The Central Bank has raised short-term interest rates from 7.5 percent in April 2013 to 14.25
percent today. As a result of having exorbitant interest rates for many years, the government
pays more than 6 percent of GDP – about 20 percent of federal spending – in net interest. This
is among the world's highest government interest burdens.
Lowering interest rates could free up money in the budget for public investment. It is clear
that the government needs to increase spending in order to jump-start the economy. This is what
it did, successfully, when the global financial crisis and recession hit in 2009.
Brazil does not yet have to worry about external financial constraints, as it currently has
$369 billion in reserves. Its net public debt is only about 34 percent of GDP (This is low by
any comparison; the problem is the exorbitant interest rates, averaging 11 percent on outstanding
government bonds). The economy has plenty of reason to grow, but it is clear that the private
sector is not going to lead this growth.
Dilma won re-election in 2014 by promising to stand up to the oligarchy, and continue the successful
policies that brought considerable economic and social progress to Brazil for the first time in
decades. Levy and his friends in Brazil's powerful financial sector may prefer higher unemployment
and lower wages, but that is not what Brazilians voted for. There is no reason for the government
to commit political suicide by continuing to implement the failed economic program of its opposition.
Aggregate Demand and the Slowdown of Brazilian Economic Growth from 2011-2014
By Franklin Serrano and Ricardo Summa
Executive Summary
This paper looks in detail at the sharp slowdown in the Brazilian economy for the years 2011-2014,
in which economic growth averaged only 2.1 percent annually, as compared with 4.4 percent in the
2004-2010 period. The latter level of growth was also more than double Brazil's average annual
growth rate over the prior 23 years (although it was much lower than the pre-1980 period). It
is important to understand why the higher rate of growth experienced from 2004 to 2010 was not
sustained over the past few years.
The authors argue that the slowdown is overwhelmingly the result of a sharp decline in domestic
demand, rather than a fall in exports and even less any change in external financial conditions.
The sharp fall in domestic demand, in turn, is shown to be a result of deliberate policy decisions
made by the government. This decision to slow the economy was not necessary, i.e., it was not
made in response to some external constraint such as a balance-of-payments problem.
Brazil's exports, and the change in their quantity between the two periods, was too small to
account for most of the large slowdown in GDP growth. From 2011-2014, exports amounted to 11.3
percent of GDP, as compared with 11.9 percent for 2004-2010.
The idea that a deterioration in external financial conditions could have driven the slowdown
is also contradicted by the data. For example, the total foreign debt-to-exports ratio dropped
from 4.7 in 1999 to 1.27 by the end of 2010, and was 1.54 in 2014. The ratio of total external
debt to foreign reserves was reduced from 6.5 in 2000 to 0.89 in 2010 (and was 0.93 in 2014).
Also, the percent of Brazilian foreign liabilities that are denominated in dollars fell from around
75 percent in 2003 to a minimum of 35 percent in 2010, and was about 40 percent in 2014.
All of this indicates that the economy had room to expand after 2010. But the government decided
to reduce aggregate demand through changes in monetary, fiscal, and macroprudential policies.
For example, the Central Bank began a cycle of interest rate increases after February 2010 that
lasted until August 2011, raising the basic nominal interest rate from 8.75 percent to 12.5 percent.
The nominal interest rate increases and the macroprudential measures – which reduced the growth
of credit -- helped to a certain extent to end the consumption boom (especially of durable goods).
Private consumption growth decelerated sharply until mid-2012, partially as a result of these
measures.
At the end of 2010, the government also decided to promote a strong fiscal adjustment in order
to increase the primary surplus and to meet the full target of 3.1 percent of GDP in 2011. Another
sign of this contractionary commitment of the new government was the decision, after years of
high increases, not to raise the real minimum wage at all in 2011, something that had not occurred
in Brazil since 1994. And despite the global economic slowdown in early 2011, the signs of which
were evident from the first quarter, fiscal adjustment was maintained throughout 2011 and the
full target for the primary surplus was achieved.
This rapid increase in the primary surplus was only possible thanks to a strong reduction in
the growth of public spending. In 2011, public investment, both of the central government and
the state-owned companies, fell dramatically, by 17.9 percent and 7.8 percent in real terms, respectively.
The government's contractionary policies led to a pronounced decline in private investment as
well, so that total investment (public and private) fell sharply. After growing at an average
annual rate of 8.0 percent between 2004 and 2010, peaking at 18 percent in 2010, gross fixed capital
formation over 2011-2014 grew by just 1.8 percent annually.
Thus it was the strong reduction in investment growth-not a process of "deindustrialization"
related to the real exchange rate, as some have maintained-that explains the slowdown in industrial
production since 2011. Manufacturing industry grew in the years 2007-2008 and in 2010, when the
exchange rate was already appreciated. It is also worth noting that during the 2004-2010 period
of higher growth, the appreciated real exchange rate was very important for controlling inflation
and thus also for increasing real wages and the growth rate of household consumption.
This paper also shows that the analysis put forth to justify the government's post-2010 strategy
was wrong. Even though the economy was already slowing in 2010, the argument was made that fiscal
tightening was necessary in order to have a large reduction in interest rates. The lower interest
rates, combined with tax cuts and other incentives for businesses, were expected to then allow
the private sector to lead growth by stimulating private investment and also export-led growth
as the real exchange rate depreciated due to the lower interest rates. However, as the pro-cyclical
policies shrank aggregate demand, private investment plummeted; and for reasons explained below,
export-led growth did not occur either. And the supposed link between public debt and sovereign
risk also turned out to be an unfounded assumption.
The result is that the government's efforts to encourage the private sector to lead economic
growth, through contractionary macro-economic policies, tax-cuts, and public-private partnerships,
had the opposite result. To return growth and employment creation to the levels of the 2004-2010
period, the government will have to change course and return to some of the policies and strategy
of those years, in which the government took responsibility for ensuring the growth of investment,
consumption, formal sector employment, and necessary infrastructure.
These authors are not buying this conventional wisdom:
"This paper also shows that the analysis put forth to justify the government's post-2010 strategy
was wrong. Even though the economy was already slowing in 2010, the argument was made that fiscal
tightening was necessary in order to have a large reduction in interest rates. The lower interest
rates, combined with tax cuts and other incentives for businesses, were expected to then allow
the private sector to lead growth by stimulating private investment and also export-led growth
as the real exchange rate depreciated due to the lower interest rates."
Neither am I but maybe for different reasons. While I'm not expert on Brazil, its macroeconomic
data paints a picture of nominal rates being high more because inflation is high not high real
interest rates. Its currency is devaluing in nominal terms for similar reasons. Why a nation with
a depressed economy has this high inflation is a mystery.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that Brazil should do a 1993 Clinton-Greenspan macroeconomic
mix with fiscal austerity. This is akin to what Volcker tried to get the clueless Reagan White
House to do in 1983. But it strikes me that Brazil's issues are different and that the fiscal
austerity did not have the effects from this conventional wisdom.
Narwhal -> pgl:
Inflation is as much result of devaluation as a cause of devaluation. The major driver is the
flow of funds; 1) The slow down and reversal of corporate investment from abroad; 2)Repatriation
of accumulated corporate profits to sustain home country weaknesses and avoid probable devaluation
before it occurred. 3)Outflow of 'hot money',speculative, portfolio investments. 4)The fall in
value of commodity exports (oil). 4) Increased cost of servicing and rolling over foreign debt.
Other factor include: downgrading of Brazilian sovereign debt, the HUGE cost of the Petrobras
and other scandals, total loss of confidence both internally and externally in the ability of
the government to understand or much less deal with the political/economic situation.
"... And people STILL don't understand this whole ISIS thing is entirely scripted. As if the us govt doesn't know exactly who is doing what with this illicit oil trade. Of course, maybe they don't. Maybe they are too busy spying on innocent us citizens to be bothered with actually doing their fucking jobs.... ..."
"... I'm sure we will get a press conference from Obama soon, where he will tell us that he just learned this by reading the newspaper and is just as shocked as we are. What a fucking clownshow we live in. ..."
"... It is inconceivable that the CIA does not already know all of this and a whole lot more. There are geostationary satellites over Iraq spamming Tb/s of data back to Langley. You only need to see the resolution of Google Maps over Iraq to know how much installed aerial surveillance covers that part of the world. Iraq has higher resolution than Manhattan. ..."
"... I would not be surprised if the CIA was tracking and analysing the movements of every single vehicle in Mosul. The technology to do it exists, it's the same technology that will manage driverless car fleets. ..."
"... What makes you think he doesn't know? Like that leading from behind propaganda in Libya so that Obama gets blamed for being a wimp or incompetent rather than the warmonger he really is. It is well known that Obama regularly fails to heed real experts advice or ignores it completely. It's claimed that in many briefings he doesn't even pay attention. His close circle of advisors, like the Kagan family, Victoria Nuland, Valerie Jarret, and such are war mongering conquer the planet types. ..."
"... For the US ISIS serves a purpose thus the pure propaganda that most US air strikes against ISIS are not approved because they might hurt civilians. Obama could care less about civilians or he never would have bombed Libya into a failed state and walked away, would not have supplied arms and money to Syrian foreign jihadists which comprise 90% of those fighting Assad, and he certainly would never run his drone campaign in at least 7 countries that has killed thousands of innocent people. ..."
"... Better to be looked upon in the history books as a tragic figure inexperienced and overwhelmed by the enormity of the office rather than the real Obama who loves spilling blood in world conquest. Recently the head of the UN called on all parties to stop this stuff in Syria and let the Syrians decide for themselves who leads them. Obama's reply was Assad must go which meant business as usual supplying weapons and cash for Syrian terrorists. ..."
"... As per videos and published reports Turkish trucking companies are making nice money hauling goods into Syria, especially to ISIS, with long lines at the border waiting to get across. The Russians are po'd about the Turks taking down their plane so they are targeting convoys entering Syria. Some nice videos of this. It's a wake up call for those trucking companies that it is now too dangerous and unprofitable to continue. They may be insured but close to all insurance companies will not pay off for damages in a war zone. ..."
"... When the Russians first entered the fray in Syria Obama's response was to drop over 100 pallets of weapons, and promises of anti tank and plane weapons, in the Syrian desert and hoped the proper rebels retrieved them. Look it up, it was all over the news. Does this sound like a peace loving leader to you? ..."
"... The US was *never* attacking ISIS (before the Bear showed up) - rather they were carrying out air-strikes on pro-Assad forces and claiming they were ISIS. Nobody outside of the MIC or on the ground there could tell the difference, so they got away with it ... until they didn't. ..."
"... This is directly related the the Su-24 shoot-down. The U.S. has turned a blind eye to Turkey's overt and covert military intervention through its Turkmen Jihadis because one of the main CIA arms-smuggling rat-lines is through the Turkmen Mountain region. The U.S. has willingly and eagerly supplied TOW-2As to the Turkmen jihadis there in order to preserve those smuggling routes. There were probably plenty of Xe/Academi military advisors helping the Turkmen and they were getting killed by Russian air strikes. The CIA is frantic to do something to prevent Syria/Russia from closing those routes, and will back any hair-brained Turkish scheme in desperation. CIA arms smuggling routes IN are also Turkish jihadi smuggling routes IN and ISIS stolen oil routes OUT. They're all related and all threatened by Russia. Same as the Aleppo-Aziz-Killis route - it's multi-purpose for many kinds of smuggling. ..."
"... Erdogan's crime family is a complex issue in already complex environment of Turkish politics - you did a great job of breaking down Bilal's motivations and the oil angle. I feel sorry for all the unfortunate Turks saddled with these psychopathic losers in charge (and I speak from the authority of experience here in the U.S.). ..."
"... Shim said she was among the few journalists obtaining stories of militants infiltrating into Syria through the Turkish border, adding that she had received images from militants crossing the Turkish border into Syria in World Food Organization and other NGOs' trucks. ..."
"... Plus, makes all the sense as to why NATO immediately bought off on the Rooskie fighter shoot-down ..."
"... Wow. I must say. Thanks a lot for this informative article ZH. I always taught that Erdogans many evil plots and insane schemes was really bad , but all the things that are brought into light now are even worse than I imagined. It all makes sense now and it actually explains why Obama and the rest of the western world has done about nothing to stop ISIS and their many war crimes around the globe. ..."
"... What Erdogan and his gangs of thugs are doing is plain out illegal and they should have been prosecuted and treated as ordinary criminals in the war criminal court in haag , but as the article tells us, also former France politicians and Obama has things to explain. ..."
"... If the Turkish President is shooting down anti-ISIS planes in order to save his son's business, and the NATO nations are excusing that action, then we really are in a filthy swamp of criminality. It's going to be very hard to climb out of it. Any high moral ground is way out of NATO's reach - now, if not before. ..."
"... A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdogan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.) ..."
"... Alain Juppe is pursuing the other movements privatizations initiated between 1986 and 1988 and since 1993 with the metallurgical group Pechiney and Usinor Sacilor in 1995, the French Foreign Trade Bank (BFCE, sold over the counter at the National Credit to give birth to Natixis), the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM also sold over the counter to the charter shipping company to create the group CMA - CGM), the General Insurance of France (AGF with the purse-up 51% of the capital, the State retaining only 2%) and the French Rhine Shipping Company (RNFL, sold over the counter at the Technical Association of the coal import ATIC) in 1996 . ..."
More and more details are coming to light revealing that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,
variously known as ISIS, IS or Daesh, is being fed and kept alive by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the
Turkish President and by his Turkish intelligence service, including MIT, the Turkish CIA
Turkey, as a result of Erdogan's pursuit of what some call a Neo-Ottoman Empire fantasies that
stretch all the way to China, Syria and Iraq, threatens not only to destroy Turkey but much of
the Middle East if he continues on his present path.
In October 2014 US Vice President Joe Biden told a Harvard gathering that Erdogan's regime was
backing ISIS with "hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons…" Biden later
apologized clearly for tactical reasons to get Erdo?an's permission to use Turkey's Incirlik Air
Base for airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, but the dimensions of Erdogan's backing for ISIS since
revealed is far, far more than Biden hinted.
According to French geopolitical analyst, Thierry Meyssan, Recep Erdogan "organised the
pillage of Syria, dismantled all the factories in Aleppo, the economic capital, and stole the
machine-tools. Similarly, he organised the theft of archeological treasures and set up an
international market in Antioch…with the help of General Benoît Puga, Chief of Staff for the
Elysée, he organised a false-flag operation intended to provoke the launching of a war by the
Atlantic Alliance – the chemical bombing of la Ghoutta in Damascus, in August 2013. "
Meyssan claims that the Syria strategy of Erdo?an was initially secretly developed in
coordination with former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and Erdogan's then Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davuto?lu, in 2011, after Juppe won a hesitant Erdogan to the idea of supporting the attack
on traditional Turkish ally Syria in return for a promise of French support for Turkish
membership in the EU. France later backed out, leaving Erdogan to continue the Syrian bloodbath
largely on his own using ISIS.
greenskeeper carl
And people STILL don't understand this whole ISIS thing is entirely scripted. As if the
us govt doesn't know exactly who is doing what with this illicit oil trade. Of course, maybe
they don't. Maybe they are too busy spying on innocent us citizens to be bothered with
actually doing their fucking jobs....
I'm sure we will get a press conference from Obama soon, where he will tell us that he
just learned this by reading the newspaper and is just as shocked as we are. What a fucking
clownshow we live in.
strannick
Ahh. It all makes sense now.
The Russian Su24 Bomber wasnt violating Turkish airspace much as it was violating Baby Bilal
Erodagans dirty oil concession and destroying his supply tankers.
Daddy Erodagan risks WW3 so his precious can exploit a NATO oil embargo and sell oil for ISIS
. Fork out on your own and get a real job and make poppa proud, Go be a Chambermaid in Munich,
or show some real grit and open a kebab stand in Berlin, and so spare the planet a nuclear
winter.
Ghordius
cosmos, is that the same French government that is currently in Moscow talking with Russia
about how to bomb ISIS in Syria? You know, the ISIS that is producing propaganda videos
accusing France and Russia to be an "Alliance Of Devils"? This while Germany is discussing
about how to support this Franco-Russian cooperation?
giovanni_f
"while Germany is discussing"
"Germany" doesn't "discuss" anything, with Merkel a full-fledged CIA asset. Germany exists
as economic exploitation area for Anglosaxon Fiat-money. Forget Germany. I know for I have
lived in this country probably for longer time than anyone on ZH.
remain calm
So how hard is it Mr Obama to kill this dude, after all you said, "we are going to hunt
down isil where every they are and destroy them and their infrastructure" Well if you kill the
money guy the operation falls apart. But you don't want that, do you? You want little crisis's
all over the world so you can divert attention from the economy and use the terrorism as a
scapegoat. You and your policies are evil.Isil if it really wanted to be powerful needs to
kill its true leader and that is you.
Occident Mortal
It is inconceivable that the CIA does not already know all of this and a whole lot
more. There are geostationary satellites over Iraq spamming Tb/s of data back to Langley. You
only need to see the resolution of Google Maps over Iraq to know how much installed aerial
surveillance covers that part of the world. Iraq has higher resolution than Manhattan.
I would not be surprised if the CIA was tracking and analysing the movements of every
single vehicle in Mosul. The technology to do it exists, it's the same technology that will
manage driverless car fleets.
The problem here is that for whatever reason, the US intelligence agencies are clearly NOT
sharing information with the US executive government.
Something has clearly broken in the chain of command inside .gov, and the rest of the world
can see this clear as day. Obama is not being told anything.
Maybe to maintain plausible deniability, maybe for some other reason? But I don't think
Obama knows squat about any of this. John Kerry must know, he is the guy who gets sent to meet
ALL of the involved parties. Notice that they always send Kerry, never Obama. Kerry must hear
it from the other side, he meets Lavrov, Assad, Bandar, Erdogan, et al.
This whole 5yr period is just weird.
I think that come 2017, the apple cart is gonna get flipped 50ft in the air as the USA
strides back into geopolitics.
not dead yet
What makes you think he doesn't know? Like that leading from behind propaganda in Libya
so that Obama gets blamed for being a wimp or incompetent rather than the warmonger he really
is. It is well known that Obama regularly fails to heed real experts advice or ignores it
completely. It's claimed that in many briefings he doesn't even pay attention. His close
circle of advisors, like the Kagan family, Victoria Nuland, Valerie Jarret, and such are war
mongering conquer the planet types.
For the US ISIS serves a purpose thus the pure propaganda that most US air strikes
against ISIS are not approved because they might hurt civilians. Obama could care less about
civilians or he never would have bombed Libya into a failed state and walked away, would not
have supplied arms and money to Syrian foreign jihadists which comprise 90% of those fighting
Assad, and he certainly would never run his drone campaign in at least 7 countries that has
killed thousands of innocent people.
Better to be looked upon in the history books as a tragic figure inexperienced and
overwhelmed by the enormity of the office rather than the real Obama who loves spilling blood
in world conquest. Recently the head of the UN called on all parties to stop this stuff in
Syria and let the Syrians decide for themselves who leads them. Obama's reply was Assad must
go which meant business as usual supplying weapons and cash for Syrian terrorists. If he
really was serious about peace he would have dropped all funding and arms for Syrian
terrorists and forced others doing the same to stop and would have all parties join Assad to
irradicate ISIS and the rest. The US has never seriously bombed ISIS, just around the edges to
contain not kill them. ISIS has been selling oil for years yet the US never seriously bombed
their tankers until the Russians did. Obama lost face and was compelled to finally take out a
few tankers and broadcast it to the world to "prove" he was serious about stopping ISIS. Many
times Obama claimed the war against ISIS was going to take 20 to 30 years yet the Kurds, who
are on the ground fighting, claim if all parties make the effort ISIS could be destroyed in a
few weeks.
As per videos and published reports Turkish trucking companies are making nice money
hauling goods into Syria, especially to ISIS, with long lines at the border waiting to get
across. The Russians are po'd about the Turks taking down their plane so they are targeting
convoys entering Syria. Some nice videos of this. It's a wake up call for those trucking
companies that it is now too dangerous and unprofitable to continue. They may be insured but
close to all insurance companies will not pay off for damages in a war zone.
When the Russians first entered the fray in Syria Obama's response was to drop over 100
pallets of weapons, and promises of anti tank and plane weapons, in the Syrian desert and
hoped the "proper rebels" retrieved them. Look it up, it was all over the news. Does this
sound like a peace loving leader to you?
new game
never underestimate the enemy, they know wtf is going on. isis is the new commie to fuel
the fear needed to keep the juice flowing. moar war, moar fiat financed by banksters. reasons
vary depending on the hatred stirred. we are bystanders funding this shit show with our taxes,
all captivated by fiat/debt in a closed system with no exits, unless of course, you live in a
wood burning, no electric home w/ hand pump well, outdoor shitter, and exist like it is 1850,
garden, root cellar and all that.
Trogdor
Like that leading from behind propaganda in Libya so that Obama gets blamed for being
a wimp or incompetent rather than the warmonger he really is...
I seem to remember the Halfrican bragging, "I'm really good at killing people" which is
something only an infantile psychopath would be proud of. Believing that he's just a simple
dupe - or incompetent - is the result of not paying attention.
The US was *never* attacking ISIS (before the Bear showed up) - rather they were
carrying out air-strikes on pro-Assad forces and claiming they were ISIS. Nobody outside of
the MIC or on the ground there could tell the difference, so they got away with it ... until
they didn't.
Oldwood
Plausible deniability
Obama doctrine: nothing that happens under his administration is his responsibility. Even his
Obamacare, with all of its disasters, is blamed on him. Nothing. He always claims to be the
outsider when in actuality he is in charge of everything.
Kayman
As if the U.S. isn't complicit in this. Look at a map- the oil can't go west thru Assad
territory, it can't go south thru Shia Iraq, and it isn't going east thru Iran. So it has no
other way to go but thru Turkey.
Turkey is a NATO member. The U.S. and Europe are supporting Turkey, therefore the U.S. and
NATO are supporting ISIS. Period. Full stop.
Kick Turkey out of NATO and Blockade Turkey. And ISIS will wither and die.
Coke and Hookers
There will be three priorities now for Russia: 1) No-fly zone south of the Turkish-Syrian
border enforced with S 400, 2) Hitting everything moving on every transit route from Turkey
and 3) Bombing the shit out of the border area and the Turkmen scum/CIA agents hanging out
there and then capturing it.
assistedliving
34 up arrows nowwithstanding, stick to the coke & hookers.
1. S400 deployment will be delayed
2. Nothing more will be hit from Turkey
3. less bombing now let alone "Bombing the shit out....?
Hard to imagine more wrong analysis; Easy to see ZH chickenhawk, Putin loving adoration
OldPhart
Ok, just an observation from the linked video. Your convoy just got bombed by a first world
nation's advanced technologies.
You're fucking lucky to be alive. Yet you bunch up all the rest of the convoy, then stand
around in the middle of it all watching, recording, the burning of some trucks. Doesn't it
occur to these ignorant mother-fucks that what they just created is the biggist classical
military strike of all time?
Russia is being merciful to fly by shit like this without strike. I thought Putin was a
hard ass, maybe he does have a heart. Well, being a decent person in politics could make one
look pretty fuckin' odd in these days of elected psychopaths.
Paveway IV
The ISIS-miniE oil sales are temporary. It was a bone the U.S. (and indirectly Israel)
threw to Erdogan so the CIA could run arms through Turkey without questions. Same thing for
the Barzani crime cartel in Iraqi Kurdistan. It's all just temporary because, long-term,
U.S./U.K./Israeli interests will own and control every oil asset in Syria and Kurdistan. Genel
is sliming their way into control of the oil fields stolen first from Iraq and soon from the
Kurds. Tony "Deepwater Horizon" Hayward runs that shop for the Rothschilds. At the appropriate
time, Mini-Erdogan and Barzani will cease to be useful to the Anglo-Zio cabal and liquidated,
just like al Nusra and ISIS. Israel wants to replace Ceyhan with Haifa and control all the oil
from their port, and they want to make sure nobody can turn the tap to them off. Rothschild
and the U.K./U.S. Israeli-firsters just want their cut of the eventual loot and to preserve
their dying petrodollar. They let Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the club for funding, and probably
promised them their pipelines through Syria.
This is directly related the the Su-24 shoot-down. The U.S. has turned a blind eye to
Turkey's overt and covert military intervention through its Turkmen Jihadis because one of the
main CIA arms-smuggling rat-lines is through the Turkmen Mountain region. The U.S. has
willingly and eagerly supplied TOW-2As to the Turkmen jihadis there in order to preserve those
smuggling routes. There were probably plenty of Xe/Academi military advisors helping the
Turkmen and they were getting killed by Russian air strikes. The CIA is frantic to do
something to prevent Syria/Russia from closing those routes, and will back any hair-brained
Turkish scheme in desperation. CIA arms smuggling routes IN are also Turkish jihadi smuggling
routes IN and ISIS stolen oil routes OUT. They're all related and all threatened by Russia.
Same as the Aleppo-Aziz-Killis route - it's multi-purpose for many kinds of smuggling.
The backup act of desperation is already playing out. While Syria/Russia tries to take back
the two main corridors mentioned above, Turkey and the U.S. are trying to create an entirely
new corridor through Afrin canton before Russia gets there. The U.S. may abhor another Kurd
slaughter like they were party to in Kobane and Sinjar, but the CIA needs new rat-lines, damn
it - that means some Afrin Rojava are going to have to die. Minne-E needs new oil smuggling
routes (and a few new tankers), and daddy needs a reliable route to funnel Uighur, Uzbek and
Chechen head-choppers to keep the pressure on Assad. Erdogan himself probably has a boner at
the thought of another 25,000 dead Kurds. Barazani won't complain too much. The Rojava Kurds
don't want to join his criminal gang and swear obedience to him, so he has no use for them. He
just needs to convince the world that he is the supreme leader of the Kurdish cause, not the
Kurds. See why he likes Erdogan so much?
For the anglo-zio oil cartel, the Syrian war isn't so much about replacing Assad right away.
They would be delighted if that happened, but now they just want to preserve what they have in
Syria in the face of Russian involvement. If worse comes to worse, all the parties will just
retract their jihadis back across Turkish borders and wait for another opportunity. There's
plenty of land-grabbing and bribery work in Iraqi Kurdistan to keep them busy for now. The
long game is to own all the oil and gas possible in Syria and Iraq when the smoke clears, and
then 100% control where it flows to and who sells it for what price. They'll kill every last
Syrian, Iraqi and Kurd if necessary to make sure they control the spice.
Paveway IV
That was a damn fine article, Tyler. +1000. I should have offered that thought first before
scratching out my rant.
Erdogan's crime family is a complex issue in already complex environment of Turkish
politics - you did a great job of breaking down Bilal's motivations and the oil angle. I feel
sorry for all the unfortunate Turks saddled with these psychopathic losers in charge (and I
speak from the authority of experience here in the U.S.).
Escrava Isaura
Turkey needs this conflict to distract its population. Second, Turkey is a main supported
of jihadi organizations such as al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. Even the US trained rebels were
killed by these jihadists with the help of Turkey.
The reason people have not talked about Turkey is because they tend to end up dead from
accidents and suicides while passing through that country.
Yes, tragically, yes they do.
Press TV's correspondent in Turkey, Serena Shim, has been killed in a suspicious car
accident near the Turkey-Syria border.
Shim was killed on Sunday as she was on a working mission in Turkey to cover the ongoing
war in the strategic Syrian town of Kobani.
She was going back to her hotel from a report scene in the city of Suruç in Turkey's Urfa
Province when their car collided with a heavy vehicle. The identity and whereabouts of the
truck driver remain unknown.
Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, covered reports for Press TV in Lebanon, Iraq,
and Ukraine.
On Friday, she told Press TV that the Turkish intelligence agency had accused her of spying
probably due to some of the stories she has covered about Turkey's stance on the ISIL
terrorists in Kobani and its surroundings, adding that she feared being arrested.
Shim said she was among the few journalists obtaining stories of militants infiltrating
into Syria through the Turkish border, adding that she had received images from militants
crossing the Turkish border into Syria in World Food Organization and other NGOs' trucks.
Shim flatly rejected accusations against her, saying she was "surprised" at this accusation
"because I have nothing to hide and I have never done anything aside my job."
Kobani and its surroundings have been under attack since mid-September, with the ISIL
militants capturing dozens of nearby Kurdish villages.
Turkey has been accused of backing ISIL militants in Syria.
Well of course Turkey sides with ISIS. Many of the ISIS fighters come across the border
into Syria from Turkey, where they have been trained. Turkey is on board with the US and the
rest of NATO. I suppose we have no choice but wait and see what the US pulls to get rid of
Assad now. It won't be pretty.
Main_Sequence
Erdogan has a raging hard-on for the multiple gas pipelines from Libya, Egypt, Israel, and
Qatar that will provide tens of billions of dollars in revenues in transit fees. Of course
Turkey will do whatever it takes to ensure that Assad falls as it is literally costing Turkey
billions of dollars every month that Assad is in power. None of what I have read about Turkey
supporting ISIS surprises me in the slightest knowing what Turkey is losing.
knukles
Plus, makes all the sense as to why NATO immediately bought off on the Rooskie fighter
shoot-down even though via the NATO documents, it technically puts NATO in a HOT war with
Russia aside from the Hot Proxy wars...
This U.S. Army film describes Turkey's history, economy, urban areas, industry, and its
role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsUEEPN9gWc
Bay of Pigs
Yeah, okay. The US is totally solvent, is that what youre saying....lol.
PeakOil
^This. But I would go further - Russia is fighting for its very existence.
The psychotic megalomaniacal Anglo-Zionist hegemon wishes to rule the world. Totally. Who is
standing in their way? Pretty obvious what this is all about wouldn't you say?
AlaricGaudiTheSecond
So Russia is funding terrorists around the globe for profits too? Give me a f*** break!!!
Liar!!
captain-nemo
Wow. I must say. Thanks a lot for this informative article ZH. I always taught that
Erdogans many evil plots and insane schemes was really bad , but all the things that are
brought into light now are even worse than I imagined. It all makes sense now and it actually
explains why Obama and the rest of the western world has done about nothing to stop ISIS and
their many war crimes around the globe.
What Erdogan and his gangs of thugs are doing is plain out illegal and they should have
been prosecuted and treated as ordinary criminals in the war criminal court in haag , but as
the article tells us, also former France politicians and Obama has things to explain.
I am simply overwhelmed over how bad it all turns out to be in reality. It explains why the
western world was so reluctant to welcome the Russians in their fighting against ISIS, they
were afraid that all their little secrets and rotten plots probably would come out. Thanks to
Russia, that's exactly what has happened now.
There are absolutely no news about these things in my country, the mainstream media are only
publishing the western political correct version of everything, and thus most people are
probably still unaware of the real truth.
ISIS is responsible for terror attacks and the lifes of thousands of civilians all around the
world. They are off course to blame and should be routed out. However. It is actually Erdogan
and his thugs that are their real generals. It is Erdogan who has blood on his hands. It is
Erdogan that should be wanted by the courts in Haag.
I am looking forward to read more about Erdogans son and the evil activities these people
are involved in. Thank you ZH an keep up the good work.
Fuku Ben
This guy is shaping up to be like another Uday Hussein, Saddam's son. Does he have any
rape, torture or murder under his belt, like Uday, in addition to his alleged war crimes and
terrorist activities? Do the Turks realize they're going to be ceding a portion of their
country for the greater glorious mission of rebuilding The Levant if ISIS/ISIL/Israel (see
below) succeed in Syria?
Here is an old quote from a Kurd on the alleged details of the ISIS operation. "Housed in
Turkey, trained in Jordan, logistics by Pakistan, literature from Saudi Arabia, funding from
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, on the ground day to day running by Israel, arms by the U.S.,
intelligence by the British, Germans and French and original arms for ISIS came from the
Muslim Brotherhood helping them take it from Libya."
One big happy family isn't it. This seems very plausible and explains why they would all be so
pissed off at what Russia has done. Again at the last press conference Hollande and Obama
openly refused to cooperate with Russia. Obama again insisting that Russia work through his
coalition and that Assad be removed.
I wonder how many U.S. citizens even realize they are
under a declared state of Nation Emergency due to that deadliest of threats to the U.S. known
as Syria. What a fraudulent joke.
Is anyone operating inside Syrian airspace yet actually doing so lawfully besides Russia? Or
are lawful authority and international law now just more fraudulent misrepresentations and
treated as a joke? Similar to how the global corporations fraudulently act as Countries and
pretending that by being a Citizen you have freedoms that they protect.
I'm struggling to find any U.N. authorization for the lawful use of force inside Syria without
the consent of the Syrian government. Not that the U.N. has that authority anyway. If anyone
finds any please feel free to post it.
It places Turkey up to its neck at the scene of the ISIS crime.
Turkey are actively involved in supporting ISIS: recruitment, training, financing, supplying
weapons and other goods to ISIS. Recep Erdogan himself is in control and his son Bilal is
handling ISIS stolen oil.
Volkodav
US Sanctions Syria for buying oil from Islamic State...
Turkey deals in Syiran oil stolen by ISIS - no sanctions.
css1971
"Turkey's actions appear premeditated, planned, and undertaken with a specific
objective."
Or put another way. We think you're evil, not stupid.
localizer
To sum it up: Erdogan has put his family income above his country's interests since the
math is simple - family pockets gain a fraction of the billions that will not be collected by
the Turkish companies now due to "sanctions" imposed by Russia, this has already begun - no
Russian tourists (that is about $3 billion/year), suspended construction contracts in Russia
for Turkish companies, extra "inspections" on ALL Turkish goods (textiles, food) entering
Russia etc...
If the Turkish President is shooting down anti-ISIS planes in order to save his son's
business, and the NATO nations are excusing that action, then we really are in a filthy swamp
of criminality. It's going to be very hard to climb out of it. Any high moral ground is way
out of NATO's reach - now, if not before.
When I wrote about the famous ISIS Toyotas a year ago (link below), I reckoned the CIA might
have bought them on ISIS's behalf - but now I wonder if perhaps Turkey's top oligarch didn't
do it on his own. I also presumed the Toyotas had been manufactured in the US, but I've since
learned that the Toyota company also manufactures left-hand-drive trucks in Thailand. This
story has a lot of angles still to uncover - and not just which tax-haven was used to
facilitate the transactions. More likely Hong Kong or Singapore than any one over in this part
of the world, in this instance.
"Mr Medvedev said: "The government has been ordered to work out a system of response measures
to this act of aggression in the economic and humanitarian spheres."He said the focus would be
on "introducing limits or bans" on Turkish economic interests in Russia and a "limitation of
the supply" of products, including food.He said tourism, transport, trade, labour and customs
as well as "humanitarian contacts" could all be affected. "The same rules may apply to a whole
range of investment projects," he said."
Wahooo
Do not focus on Ergodan, focus on the US:
Seymour Hersh, April 2014:
A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement
reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdogan administrations. It pertained to the rat
line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and
Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's
arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of
Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn't always know who was really
employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David
Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair
with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)
Wrascaly Wabbit
The following article is an eye opener in terms of how ISIL finances itself!
Hey Tyler (or anyone else who wants to do the research,
It might not be a bad idea to look further into Alain Juppe who was
mentioned in Engdahl's article. He was responsible for the
privatization of a French foreign trade bank and two French shipping
companies years back. But old ties run deep in politics and shady
deals.
This is what I found from a cursory look at French Wiki:
ISIS support in Turkey could have nothing at all to do with any of
these companies today, but then again it might. Seeing the foreign
trade bank and shipping connections here just alerted my spidey
senses.
It is about oil and the disintegration of the Arab countries. Destruction of nations and
killing of their people mean absolutely nothing to these psycopaths. In fact , the chosen
people have planned the destruction of the Arab countries just so there will be no centralized
pwer to threaten Israel.
Gulag
Turkey is facilitating selling ISIS stolen oil from Iraq and Syria oilfields to G20
membership countries on the black market at a dumping price. Has been estimated that as much
as $800mil of oil has been sold in Turkey by ISIS using Turkey / Syrian border in direct
dealings between Turkish officials and ISIS members under the blind eye of UK and USA.
Turkey is a corrupt, jihadist sh*t hole that hosts, protects, finances and offer intelligence
and logistics to ISIS under cover of NATO membership and alliance with USA.
Turkey is
considered a USA ally while ISIS is considered a terrorist faction in war with America.
Turkey is s state sponsor of ISIS with a NATO membership. NATO is harboring a state that
sponsors ISIS. That makes NATO and all nations within NATO membership accomplices of
sponsoring terrorism.
... ... ...
me or you
Turkey is buying and selling ISIS oil while NATO is smuggling Taliban opium.
johmack2
What irks me the most is the lack of investigative journalism during this whole middle east
fiasco. It was as if after the watergate scandal, washington vowed never again and thus began
the death of journalism. In the day and age when you have have alternative media giving more
indept analysis than CNN/BBC on geopolitical issues and sites like muddywaters using
investigation as means of peeling away the corporate veil of corruption, one has to wonder the
nature of the illusion we find ourselves in.
As i have assimilated more information, the words from morpheous in the matrix to neo in the
training simulation continuously ring true.
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look
around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the
people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system
and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to
be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they
will fight to protect it. "
"... The US and its allies have allowed their desire for regime change in Syria to outweigh their stated desire to get rid of ISIS. What does that result in? Implicit or explicit protection for ISIS and related extremist groups inside Syria. Turkey was enjoying big business in Syrian underground oil shipments...until the Russians bombed ISIS's oil infrastructure. Then Turkey attacked a Russian plane. What does it mean? ..."
The US and its allies have allowed their desire for regime change in Syria to outweigh
their stated desire to get rid of ISIS. What does that result in? Implicit or explicit protection
for ISIS and related extremist groups inside Syria. Turkey was enjoying big business in Syrian
underground oil shipments...until the Russians bombed ISIS's oil infrastructure. Then Turkey
attacked a Russian plane. What does it mean? Tune in to the Liberty Report:
US provision of advanced missiles to Syrian rebel factions once again came into close focus
this week, when a faction affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) attacked and destroyed a
Russian helicopter trying to rescue pilots from a plane shot down by Turkey.
According to Syrian military officials, however, the US TOW missiles are not the rare sight they
once were in the war, and many factions, including those allied with al-Qaeda, are making
"intensive" use of the US missiles in northwestern Syria.
TOW missile shipments are seen going through Turkey, with Saudi Arabia subsidizing the program.
The US escalated the shipments after Russia began its involvement in the Syrian Civil War,
despite insistence that the arms are purely targeted at the Syrian military.
Russia has warned the US the provision of those arms is a "major mistake," and that those arms
are going to inevitably wind up in the hands of terrorist organizations, and not just the
"vetted" groups. This has been the case in past US arms shipments, and hardly a terror faction
exists in Syria anymore that isn't awash in US arms.
President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan said on Nov. 26 that Turkey would not apologize for the Nov. 24 downing of a
Russian jet near the Syrian border.
"I think that if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is not us," Erdoğan said in an
interview with CNN International.
He also added that the Turkish pilots who shot down the
Russian jet had "done their duty within
the rules of engagement."
"Those who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize. Our pilots and our armed
forces, they simply fulfilled their duties, which consisted of responding to ... violations of
the rules of engagement. I think this is the essence of the issue," Erdoğan said.
"... You have to laugh when you hear Erdogan and that puppy he's got for a Prime Minister solemnly saying that their airspace is sacrosanct and that they would never do the same to another sovereign nation. Yet, every week or so Turkish jets violate Greek airspace over the Aegean. And their jets don't stay for 30 seconds either. Personally I wouldn't believe anything that the Turks say about this incident. ..."
"... Bravo. Pumping out endless western propaganda for the moronic. The Americans and NATO are the biggest warmongers in history: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/.../turkey-has-destroyed.../ ..."
"... Erdogan is a bad guy, who receives western political cover due to Turkey's NATO membership. ..."
"... According to Seymour Hersch it was Turkey that was behind the Ghouta gas attack (well it certainly wasn't Assad). There was also a plan to attack a Turkish shrine inside Syria to be used as a pretext for a full invasion. The video clip is available on youtube. In the recording you can hear the defence minister and the head of intelligence discussing the plan, agreeing to do it, even though they don't like the idea, while lamenting the fact that everything is politics in modern Turkey. Nobody ever talks about this. Erdogan's response to this was to shut down Youtube for a day. ..."
"... ISIS fighters move in and out of Turkey with ease, receive medical treatment there and selling their oil at very competitive prices to people close to the Erdogan regime. Because NATO have gone along with Turkey in the "Assad must go" mantra they've been stuck covering up for his antics. But shooting down a Russian jet that clearly wasn't threatening Turkey was extremely reckless - maybe regime change in Ankara may be on the cards. ..."
"... "Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly." ..."
"... Martin Chulov is certainly not biased in his reporting in favour of Russia or against Turkey. He has reported mostly in favour of the rebels in Syria and only recently realised what the outcome of all this is. ..."
"... His facts about the ISIS-Turkish connection are not imagination presented against reason. Isis i.e. was free to attack the Kurds inside Turkey and the government did nothing to stop them, even when they knew about them very well. ..."
"... Believing that Erdogan, whose country's human rights record is pretty unenviable (in particular with regard to journalists), fell out with Assad because he was appalled by the latter's repression is like believing that Mussolini's decision to aid Franco in the Spanish Civil War was largely motivated by his horror at the bad behaviour of Spanish Anarchists and Communists. ..."
"... Turkey is a conduit, the Turkish presidents son is buying the oil from ISIS, just like US Vice President Joe Bidens son joined the board of Ukraines largest Gas producer after Nato expanded into the Ukraine. ..."
"... Was the downing of the jet by Turkey a tit for tat exercise as Russia destroyed some of the hundreds of lorry oil tankers parked up in ISIS territory heading for Turkey 6 days ago? ..."
"... Al Qaeda was created and used by the usa to do terror on Russia. No reason tho think things have changed, when clearly they have not. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, all have fallen....more to come. There is no "wondering" at all about the orogon an dpurpose of the ISIS when they admit they are al qaeda re packaged ...When the US admits al qaeda has melded into the ISIS. ..."
"... Terrorists in the middle east are a western supported geo-political tool to allow us to bomb, invade, destabilizen and balkanize soverign nations who refuse globalist ideology and orders. ..."
"... All a bit too convenient with the film crew at the ready. Clearly Erdogan is looking to further his agenda and set his sights on expanding Turkey's borders and it looks as though he's using NATO's protection to do it. ..."
"... It's ironic that NATO affords Turkey so much protection given that Turkey funds ISIS, it trades with them, it allows IS fighters free travel across Turkish borders and it also fights IS enemies for them - the Kurds. Outside of the Gulf, Turkey is the jihadist's biggest ally. ..."
"... Well, at least we have seen that those K-36 ejection seats do work; they have reportedly never failed. Of course Turkey, and Western Europe for that matter, has been playing a double game. Just like in Afghanistan in the 1980s, they prefer the acid-throwers and head-choppers to a Russian-backed secular regime. ..."
"... Even the Western MSM has openly reported about and from the staging areas in Turkey, where the jihadists gather before entering Syria. The US-lead "coalition" is now boasting about bombing ISIL oil convoys, but where has it been for the past few years? Everybody with a single functioning grey cell knows that Turkey is involved in the ISIS oil smuggling business and allowing the jihadist to train on its territory. ..."
"... The Turkmen who Turkey is protecting have been attacking Kurds. The Turks have been bombing the Kurds, who are fighting ISIS. ..."
"... The Turks have been buying ISIS' oil and giving other funding. Weapons funded by Gulf States have almost certainly been crossing the Turkish border for ISIS. It is suspected the Turkey has been providing a safe haven for ISIS fighters. Tens of thousands have crossed Turkeys borders to join rebel groups, the chances that some of them have not joined ISIS is nil. ..."
"... Lest anyone forget, Al Qaeda are themselves have orchestrated huge scale terrorist attacks. But becausing they are fighting Assad in Syria, who is hated by the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel, unquestioned or criticised almost regardless what they do by the West allies of the West, apparently Al Qaeda are now fine. ..."
"... I wonder if the leaders of NATO were involved in anyway at all??? ..."
"... And - does this lend weight to those who have shown that ISIS is a result of the Libyan, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and that they are mercenaries who have formed an insurgency within Syria for a regime change? A war crime, definitely against international law. ..."
"... In the warnings at no point do the turks actually say the russians are in turkish airspace, just that they are heading towards it; they also do not threaten to fire upon the Russians like the RAF do over here when they issue a warning. Normally the defending plane would come alongside the transgressor to escort them out the airspace, here they just just shoot at the russians without issuing a warning. It also appears that there just so happened to be a tv crew there perfectly poised to film it - what a coincidence. There is no way we are getting dragged into a war over this. ..."
"... The whole rotten scam is coming undone. No one believes the mainstream media any more. I skip the articles and go straight to the comments. That's where you find out what's really going on. Thank you for all the insightful comments. The truth will set us free ..."
"... 'It is in West's interest that ISIS would spill into Russia one day and do the dirty job there for US and its associates.' ..."
"... Oh, and the "rebels" shooting the pilots as they made their descent is a war crime. ..."
"... "Turkey said one of its US-made F-16 fighters fired on the Russian plane when it entered Turkish airspace after having been warned on its approach to the Turkish border through a 13-mile no-fly zone inside Syria it had declared in July." ..."
"... By what right does Turkey declare a 13 mile no fly zone inside Syria? This is clearly grounds for believing that the Russian jet was in fact shot down over Syria and not Turkey. ..."
"... Turkey has overplayed its hand and Erdogan's strategy and tactics in respect of Syria are now in tatters. NATO will be scrambling to put the frighteners on Erdogan who is clearly a loose cannon and totally out of his depth. ..."
"... Quite interestingly, yesterday, Russians claimed that in the past two previous days they have made 472 attacks on oil infrastructure and oil-trucks controlled by ISIS, which is obviously the right thing to do if you want to derange their sources of financing - but, apparently, the 'training partners' of ISIS are reacting... ..."
"... Russia was invited into support Assad by Syrias leader whether we or Nato like it or not. Turkey France and US were not. Turkeys Air force will have to watch itself now as I suspect Russia will deploy fighter aircraft to protect there bombers and the Kurds. As for the original question I think Putin may be right and Turks do have a foot in both camps. Nato should be very aware of the consequences of playing the whose to blame game when the stakes are so high. ..."
"... So, Turkey downs a Russian bomber and immediately runs to its daddies ?!?! C'mon! What a joke!! ..."
"... Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that "my enemy's enemy is my friend" and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf. A trawl through Sayyaf's compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had "urgent policy implications". ..."
"... Payback for the Russians bombing ISIS oil convoys? Would Turkey shoot down a Russian air force jet without the nod from allies? Situation getting very dangerous I would think. ..."
"... "the US could potentially extract a lot out of it " ..."
"... And even if something is extracted in return, at the end of the day, NATO and the US will be defacto protecting the islamists, which is Turkey's goal. You can say NATO and the US are fucked now because they will have to do what they didn't want to do at all. ..."
"... Attacking people parachuting from an aircraft in distress is a war crime under Protocol I in addition to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. ..."
"... From a Russian perspective the opening paragraphs of article speak for themselves. Russian entry into the 'game' meant Turkey became a second category power in a region they have sought to dominate, the strike is a sign of weakness and not strength and whoever sanctioned it (done so quickly you'd wonder if Ankara was aware) is an amateur player because it weakened Turkey and strengthened the Russian hand. ..."
"... Of course Putin is right but he only tells part of the story. The main accomplice of terrorists and other non-existent so called "moderate" head-choppers is the United States, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel are merely facilitating this policy on behalf of the US and in accordance to their independent regional pursuits, that converge however on the removal of Assad and the use of ISIS as a proxy army to remove Assad. ..."
"... Events like today's become a useful window on an otherwise murky, indecipherable geopolitics. In the fraught aftermath of the Paris attacks, we should do our best to see ISIS for what they are and have always been: the entree to the main course proxy war between Russia and Western allied interests. ..."
"... Today a Russian plane goes down and first of all it's Turkey's fault, but Turkey wouldn't have done that without explicit permission to do so from either NATO or the US, but then a few hours later as it all looks really bad for Turkey (and by association everyone else in the "coalition") it turns out to have been Turkmen, but which ones? There's two factions, one is a "rebel" group backed by the US, the other is a "terrorist" group (aligned with "ISIS") and backed by the US. They are both fighting Assad. ..."
"... Senator John McCain can be thankful the North Vietnamese were not as bad as these Turkmen Turks. "Turkmen militiamen in Syria claimed to have shot the pilots as they descended on parachutes from the stricken Su-24 bomber." What the Turkmen brag about having done is something neither the North Vietnamese nor the actual Nazis would have condoned. ..."
"... Let's assume that this lying ISIS loving terrorist, Erdogan, is speaking the truth. He says Russia has been attacking Syrian Turkoman who are defending their land. One should ask this blood-thirsty ape this question: What then are Kurdish people in Turkey doing? ..."
"... That's the whole problem. The banksters and corporations that run the US have too much to lose in Saudi Arabia and the Persian gulf. And they want that pipeline from the Gulf to the Levant but Syria (with its secular ruler, hated by the jihadists) won't play ball with the banksters. Hence, with American corporations' blessing, Turkey and Arabia loose the Daesh on them . And al-Qeada and al-Nusra and all the other "moderate" rebels supplied with modern weapons by American arms corporations. ..."
"... "Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (£6.6m) per week to the terror group's coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client." ..."
"... Why doesn't The Guardian grow a pair and investigate the role of Turkish President Erdogan in this illegal oil trade, specifically through his son Bilal Erdogan, whose shipping company (jointly owned with two of Erdogan's brothers) BMZ Group has a rapidly expanding fleet of oil tankers... ..."
The relationship hinted at by Russian leader after warplane was shot down is a complex one, and includes links between senior
Isis figures and Turkish officials
Wirplit 24 Nov 2015 20:43
Turkey under Erdogan is turning out to be a real problem for the West. Supporting Isis and other jihadist groups and attacking
the Kurds. Maybe now the Russians will support the PKK. Tragedy for the liberal Turks that Erdogan won
Phil Atkinson moreblingplease 24 Nov 2015 19:57
The evidence is out there if you want to look for it. Erdogan's son runs a shipping company that transports - guess what? Oil.
Alexander Marne 24 Nov 2015 19:53
It is an obvious attempt of Turkey trying to make the European+American+Christian Civilization wage war against Russia with
the NATO war pact argument. NATO at these times is the perfect ingredient needed for a Christian Winter, having Christian Nations
disobey the whims of a secular NATO alliance that has everything bus dissolved since the Iron Curtain fell. We all know the radical
Muslims and their cousins are our enemy now, not the Soviet WARSAW pact which NATO was created to defend against. NATO members
that go to war against Russia would risk internal revolution lead by the Majority Christian Population that has grown evermore
dissatisfied of their Frankenstein Secular Ethic governments and sellout leadership.
hfakos Fiddle 24 Nov 2015 19:51
No Russian gas pipeline and, thus transit fees, to Hungary either. Germany shut down SouthStream, only to sign a deal with
evil Putin to double the capacity of NorthStream. Who wouldn't love an EU like that? We are all equal, but Germany and Western
Europe are more equal than others.
Phil Atkinson -> marph70 24 Nov 2015 19:50
Agreed. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is a misnomer, given its current membership (28 countries). NATO was formed
by 12 countries in 1949 and today, is a tool for encirclement of Russia.
yianni 24 Nov 2015 19:47
You have to laugh when you hear Erdogan and that puppy he's got for a Prime Minister solemnly saying that their airspace
is sacrosanct and that they would never do the same to another sovereign nation. Yet, every week or so Turkish jets violate Greek
airspace over the Aegean. And their jets don't stay for 30 seconds either. Personally I wouldn't believe anything that the Turks
say about this incident.
somethingbrite -> KevinKeegansYfronts 24 Nov 2015 19:46
I think we can probably ask that chap in his semi in Coventry where ISIS plan to attack next...the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights is it? The man seems to have a hotline to Raqqa and every other ISIS held territory.
That said....the Guardian doesn't appear to have quoted him for a week or so....
Have they been unable to reach him since Paris?
Is he on the run? Hiding out in Belgium maybe?
SystemD 24 Nov 2015 19:40
I listened to Ashdown on Today yesterday. His comments about links between Gulf states and the Tories were extremely interesting
and unexpected. The same questions should be asked regarding Turkey. Why has the report about the funding of jihadism in the UK
not been published?
Phil Atkinson -> GemmaBlueSkySeas 24 Nov 2015 19:38
Would Turkey have shot down the SU-24 if Turkey wasn't a NATO member? Think on it.
camerashy -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:31
Yeah right, that's the western propaganda machine for you. They were saying the same thing last year ... Only misguided minds
believe such nonsense!
Neutronstar7 -> Adrian Rides 24 Nov 2015 19:31
Bravo. Pumping out endless western propaganda for the moronic. The Americans and NATO are the biggest warmongers in history:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/.../turkey-has-destroyed.../
I cannot believe it, but I feel ashamed of my own country and all the other western governments and our proxy's involved in
this vile conspiracy. Blow us up, we deserve it.
WankSalad 24 Nov 2015 19:30
All of this should just make us more furious about the Paris attacks.
The attackers; ISIS, are quite literally being armed, supported and facilitated by our "friends and allies" Turkey, Saudi Arabia
and Qatar.
Meanwhile Turkey directs it's fire at the Kurds - a group of moderate Muslims and secularists who have only ever wanted independent
statehood - whom we are supposed to be helping fight ISIS.
Saudi Arabia has also been quite clearly the source of most of the extremist Islamism that has repeatedly attacked our civil
societies. They have funded and set up Islamist mosques all throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Are we really getting good value out of our relationships with these nations?
^Our leaders refuse to say any of this openly. It's infuriating. Sooner or later something has to give.
Omniscience -> James Brown 24 Nov 2015 19:30
How can a dictator, who took over from his father (a dictator) be called a legitimate government ? Even by a Russian...
hfakos -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:28
Sounds like everyday Western duplicity. Car bombs and suicide bombers are fine as long as they only target Damascus. But when
the people the West has nurtured attack Paris, the world ends.
camerashy -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:27
You're such a feeble minded person! At least Puting didn't sell $hitloads of arms to Saudi Arabia enabling them to support
and nurture Isis. Look in the mirror once in a while, will ya ...
camerashy 24 Nov 2015 19:19
There's nothing to worry about here ... Putin is one cool customer, he'll have his revenge when time is right, and it'll be
nothing like a Cameroneasque thoughtless, hurried, knee jerk reaction. Turkey on its own wouldn't dare do anything like they've
done, they're just being manipulated by NATO warmongers who are desperate to justify their existence.
DrKropotkin 24 Nov 2015 19:17
Erdogan is a bad guy, who receives western political cover due to Turkey's NATO membership. But he has strayed very
far from the path of sanity and I think NATO will soon start looking for ways to get rid of him.
According to Seymour Hersch it was Turkey that was behind the Ghouta gas attack (well it certainly wasn't Assad). There
was also a plan to attack a Turkish shrine inside Syria to be used as a pretext for a full invasion. The video clip is available
on youtube. In the recording you can hear the defence minister and the head of intelligence discussing the plan, agreeing to do
it, even though they don't like the idea, while lamenting the fact that everything is politics in modern Turkey. Nobody ever talks
about this. Erdogan's response to this was to shut down Youtube for a day.
ISIS fighters move in and out of Turkey with ease, receive medical treatment there and selling their oil at very competitive
prices to people close to the Erdogan regime. Because NATO have gone along with Turkey in the "Assad must go" mantra they've been
stuck covering up for his antics. But shooting down a Russian jet that clearly wasn't threatening Turkey was extremely reckless
- maybe regime change in Ankara may be on the cards.
KevinKeegans -> Yfronts 24 Nov 2015 19:17
"Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their
way and rarely tackled them directly."
So people in the Guardian are in contact with "senior" members of Isis? Was it a meeting over tea and scones? Perhaps you could
stop being their mouthpiece and ask them which public area they intend to blow up next. After that you could give the authorities
their contact details so that they can solve this issue quickly. That would be most helpful. Of course you might lose a couple
of years worth of potential headlines.
moria50 -> Rubear13 24 Nov 2015 19:14
ISIS started back in 2009.Jordan has a Centcom underground training centre, and 2,000 US special Forces came to train them.Gen
Dempsey oversaw this training camp.
Jordanian special forces were instructors along with the US.
James Brown 24 Nov 2015 19:10
Four years of providing money, transport, training, air and artillery cover against legitimate Syrian government forces to
terrorists and Guardian asks this question? Turkey = #1 supporter of Islamic terrorism. Open your damn eyes.
hfakos -> Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 19:09
Given that ISIS was created with significant Western help, why would Putin do anything about it? He finally acted when the
head-choppers got totally out of control and started to threaten Russia too. The downing of the Russian airliner, the several
failed terror attacks in France, and the Paris massacre should have opened your eyes.
NATO has an abysmal foreign policy record. In a mere decade they managed to turn Europe into a place where one has to fear
going to the Christmas market. Well done, "winners" of the Cold War.
pdutchman -> PMWIPN 24 Nov 2015 19:07
Martin Chulov is certainly not biased in his reporting in favour of Russia or against Turkey. He has reported mostly in
favour of the rebels in Syria and only recently realised what the outcome of all this is.
His facts about the ISIS-Turkish connection are not imagination presented against reason. Isis i.e. was free to attack
the Kurds inside Turkey and the government did nothing to stop them, even when they knew about them very well.
Once you see what is going on and what the results are, you have to consider the possibility Europe is threatened by fundamentalists,
also inside Turkey and Turkish government.
Just read the political program of grand vizier Davutoğlu, or the speeches of Erdoğan on the glorious pas of the Ottoman empire
when he visits former territory.
His vision is one of a regional Islamic state run by Turkey, that would be a superpower.
He detests western democracy and 'European' western humanitarian values and has not made a secret of this. He is a convinced
islamist and his support for ISIS and Al Nusra has sadly enough been very successful.
elvis99 -> tr1ck5t3r 24 Nov 2015 19:06
I agree. Its all about the oil.
Not only that there is a huge fracking industry at risk. It costs approx. $80 a barrel to produce and it selling approx.$50 at
present. They are running at a loss as most finance for these enterprises were secured when it was $120 a barrel. Yellen could
not afford to raise interest rates as it would crush a fossil fuel industry within the USA. Get the war machine moving though
and watch the price climb and save that profit margin
hfakos -> kohamase 24 Nov 2015 19:01
It's mostly the Western establishment, not the people. Hungary is not the West but we are in the EU and unfortunately NATO
as well, and the vast majority of the population supports Russia on this imho. Russia made the mistake of trusting the West under
Yeltsin. What you have to understand, and Putin has got it I think, is that Western Europe has a paranoid obsession to bring Russia
to its knees. It's been like this for centuries, just think about how many times the civilized West has invaded your country.
And old habits die hard. They prefer head-choppers and acid-throwers to having a mutually beneficial civilized relationship with
Russia. But you are not alone, Eastern Europe, although formally in the EU, is also looked down upon by the West.
ID9793630 24 Nov 2015 19:01
It's possible Erdogan is rattled at the possibility that the Russians might be about to pull off a secretive realignment of
external participants against ISIS - the possibility of unstated coordination between American, Russian and French armed actions
in the air and on the ground, with various local allies - and this incident shooting down the jet, created for the cameras, is
also intended to overturn that potential applecart.
underbussen -> DenisOgur 24 Nov 2015 19:00
Yeah, so what then, countries violate others airspace all the time - we don't see them downing each others aircraft do we?
Maybe sometimes it happens, this is action by Turkey is outrageous, and very, very aggressive. Turkey will pay, one way or the
other, lets see if that gas price goes up and now might they fare should they loose it?
Angelis Dania 24 Nov 2015 18:55
"The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on
Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis. Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely
to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers."
Assad's allies enabled and supported ISIS? Such an embarrassing thing to say.
"Assad, who had, until his brutal response to pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011, been a friend of the Turkish president,
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. "After that he became an enemy," said one western official. "Erdoğan had tried to mentor Assad. But after
the crackdown [on demonstrations] he felt insulted by him. And we are where we are today."
Armed infiltrators in the protest groups fired first at police according to numerous eyewitnesses. How poor a journalist do
you have to be to continue to write articles on the basis of widely debunked allegations? Lol, "Erdoğan tried to mentor President
Bashar Al-Assad". What on Earth would motivate you to even quote that? Like an inferiority-complex ridden backwards terrorist
supporter like Erdoğan can approach the sagacity and popularity of Dr. Bashar Al-Assad.
MelRoy coolGran 24 Nov 2015 18:55
He did use his spy power to find out the source of Isis funding and was told the funding was coming from Saudi Arabia, Qatar
and Turkey.
hfakos Gaudd80 24 Nov 2015 18:53
Because we, our governments that is, are not serious about tackling Islamist extremism. Scoring points against Russia is still
the main motivation of the West. This strategy had a low cost for the West in 1980s far-away Afghanistan. But Syria is in our
neighborhood and the world has become much more open. The yanks can still play this nasty game without repercussions, because
they are an island protected by two oceans. But it's a mystery to me why Europeans are stupid enough to favor the nearby chaos
of the head-choppers to secular regimes. ME oil and gas could be replaced to a large extent by Russia, but this again would go
against the paranoid Western desire to see that crumble. So you see France, the UK, and the US bombing ISIS with one hand and
giving it money through Saudi and Qatar with the other. It's insanity.
The problem is, nobody else is able to say it, because the Obama and Cameron administrations are up to their necks in it. They
knew that Turkey was responsible for the gas attacks on civilians in Syria. They know (who doesn't?) that the Turks are killing
the people who are fighting terrorists inside Syria. They know that the money, the weapons and the foreign fighters are being
funnelled into Syria through Turkey, with the Turkish government's not just knowledge, but cooperation and even facilitation.
They can't say it, because over and over again they have bald-faced lied to the public. They can't say that the "good guys"
in the fight against Isil are not just the Kurds, but the Iranians, Hezbollah, Assad and the Russians - our supposed "enemies",
and the "bad guys" are the ones we are sending all the money and munitions to - our supposed "allies".
tr1ck5t3r northsylvania 24 Nov 2015 18:41
Oil.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Without oil, the Western economies would crash, we are so dependent on it, but the US military are the biggest dependents.
the Pentagon might consume as much as 340,000 barrels (14 million gallons) every day. This is greater than the total national
consumption of Sweden or Switzerland.
Take away the oil and you will see the US military industrial complex die on its knees.
salfraser 24 Nov 2015 18:40
It would be as well to understand the ultimate motives of the current day Saladin. Look what was said in May this year.
27th. May 2015 : President Erdogan And The Prime Minister Of The Turkey Dovotogolu Just Made This Declaration To The Entire Islamic
World:
'We Will Gather Together Kurds And Arabs, And All Of The Muslim World, And Invade Jerusalem, And Create A One World Islamic Empire'
By Allah's will, Jerusalem belongs to the Kurds, the Turks, the Arabs, and to all Muslims. And as our forefathers fought side
by side at Gallipoli, and just as our forefathers went together to liberate Jerusalem with Saladin, we will march together on
the same path [to liberate Jerusalem]."
Erdogan and Dovutoglu at their speech in which they spoke of the revival of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Jerusalem
The amazing speeches by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu were given at the inauguration
ceremony at the country's 55th airport in Yuksekova district of southeastern border province of Hakkari, in which they made an
entire declaration to the Islamic world, on their desire to conquer Jerusalem and form a universal Islamic empire.
Looks like our American friends are about to create yet another conflict of interest!
Rubear13 Omniscience 24 Nov 2015 18:39
ISIS was created in 2013-2014 and proclaimed itself chalifate after taking much territory in 2014. During this year russian
had a lot of problems with crisis, civil war and ~2-3 millions of refugeers from Ukraine. And he did much. Both in terms of weapons
and policy.
By the way, Assad was actually winning war during 2012-2013 before creation of ISIS in Iraq.
RudolphS 24 Nov 2015 18:37
So the jet flew allegedly for 17 seconds in Turkish airspace. As Channel 4 News' international editor Lindsey Hilsum accurately
asked today 'How come a Turkish TV crew was in the right place, filming in the right direction as a Russian plane was shot down?
Lucky? Or tipped off?'
R. Ben Madison -> leonzos 24 Nov 2015 18:35
I suspect that Erdoğan switched sides when the West began to look like it was going to impose 'regime change' on Syria and
wanted to be on the winning side. It took a herculean, bipartisan effort here in the US to keep Obama from obtaining Congressional
support for a war on Syria. At the time, I (and many others) condemned the normally warmongering Republicans for tying the president's
hands purely out of hypocritical spite, but the Democrats were against it too and the whole effort collapsed.
Having taken an early lead in the "get rid of Assad" race, Erdoğan seems to have had the rug pulled out from under him. Sorry
for the mixed metaphor.
johnmichaelmcdermott -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 18:33
How about evidence such as an article from the notorious 'troofer' site, The Jerusalem Post, quoting that other infamous conspiracy
site, The Wall Street Journal?
"Erdoğan had tried to mentor Assad. But after the crackdown [on demonstrations] he felt insulted by him. And we are where
we are today."
Believing that Erdogan, whose country's human rights record is pretty unenviable (in particular with regard to journalists),
fell out with Assad because he was appalled by the latter's repression is like believing that Mussolini's decision to aid Franco
in the Spanish Civil War was largely motivated by his horror at the bad behaviour of Spanish Anarchists and Communists.
tr1ck5t3r 24 Nov 2015 18:25
Turkey is a conduit, the Turkish presidents son is buying the oil from ISIS, just like US Vice President Joe Bidens son
joined the board of Ukraines largest Gas producer after Nato expanded into the Ukraine.
Was the downing of the jet by Turkey a tit for tat exercise as Russia destroyed some of the hundreds of lorry oil tankers
parked up in ISIS territory heading for Turkey 6 days ago? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6oHbrF8ADs
Theres a pattern here.
Likewise Russia have released their version of events regarding the shot down jets route, claiming it didnt enter Turkish airspace.
Whats interesting is this Russian data was released at 8pm UK time, and yet the British press are still running with the rhetoric
from this morning, where at 4am UK time a Russia jet was shot down according to Reuters..
So it would seem the UK press are sitting on this latest inconvenient news, perhaps trying to come up with a way to spin it
or waiting for the UK Govt to advise how to spin it if its even to be mentioned so the Govt looks innocent in the eyes of the
electorate.
Whilst the availability of data from Turkey was very quickly made available, perhaps it was fabricated and released too quickly
in order to maintain momentum with todays news agenda?
All the while GCHQ and NSA sock puppets & other Nato countries flood various media outlets comments sections to drown out critical
analysis.
I wonder if I'll be approached by more US and UK military personal "unofficially" whilst out walking the dog in Thetford forest,
and be spoken to?
Its interesting watching the news from other countries, certainly watching Russia Today and their spin is interesting.
I can only conclude there will be another massive financial crisis coming for one or more countries, so in order to divert
the masses a war is needed, as wars always boost economies.
Hyperion6 -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 18:24
Sensible people would realise that only one of ISIS and Assad can be brought to the negotiating table. Sensible people would
realise that Turkey is playing the same duplicitous game that Pakistan played, namely supporting the most despicable fundamentalists
while being an 'ally' of the West.
Frodo baggins -> Gaudd80 24 Nov 2015 18:24
Al Qaeda was created and used by the usa to do terror on Russia. No reason tho think things have changed, when clearly
they have not. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, all have fallen....more to come. There is no "wondering" at all about the orogon an dpurpose
of the ISIS when they admit they are al qaeda re packaged ...When the US admits al qaeda has melded into the ISIS.
Terrorists in the middle east are a western supported geo-political tool to allow us to bomb, invade, destabilizen and
balkanize soverign nations who refuse globalist ideology and orders.
Jan Burton 24 Nov 2015 18:23
Cut the bullshit.
Turkey is little more than an ISIS and al Qaeda support base, and now they're even providing an Air Force.
Get these scumbags out of NATO now
kohamase 24 Nov 2015 18:19
I don't understand you western guys. Am Russian and not a big fun of Putin but in this situation Russia fights terrorists ,
same people who organized massacre in Paris . Why , why shoot them down??? What is the meaning of this ? We can disagree on many
questions but we should agree on One : ISIS must GO !!! If you don't want to do it then at list don't stand on our way cleaning
up the mess you've created!!!
Tiberius2 24 Nov 2015 18:17
Crystal clear, the Turks are profiteering from stolen oil, the whole Turkish establishment is involved on this corrupted trade
namely : border guards, police and the military, all of them being involved, plus business men with political connections .
ISIS get also weapons and training, Jihadist from the world over, gets red carpet treatment and supply with passports.
The Jihadist can travel unmolested, to and from Syria via Turkey in order to carry out atrocities like Paris and Tunisia.
The West looks the other way to this situation and try to ignore it ,until it gets hit in the hearth, like Paris.
fantas1sta -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 18:17
Oh, I do think Russia was wrong to send troops into Crimea, but I also think the west was wrong to back the coup against Ukraine's
democratically elected government. NATO gambled that they could interfere in Ukraine and lost, now they know that Putin is difficult
to intimidate and that Russia defends its sphere of influence like the US defends its own. All powers are hypocrites, such is
the nature of their global interests, but Turkey are both hypocrites and cowards, shooting down a plane and then hiding their
heads under Uncle Sam's sweater.
grish2 Tommy Thrillbigger 24 Nov 2015 18:16
Majority of people in Europe support the Russians. The governments are making excuses for the turks. And the turks are with
the head choppers.
theoldmanfromusa -> ID9309755 24 Nov 2015 18:15
You have a strange opinion of the situation. The major problem is that the ruling classes (politicians, imams, etc.) use the
most inflammatory rhetoric to stir up the population (most of it) that is not intellectual and/or clever. These intellectual/clever
types can then make obscene profits from their rabble rousing.
Apollonian 24 Nov 2015 18:12
All a bit too convenient with the film crew at the ready. Clearly Erdogan is looking to further his agenda and set his
sights on expanding Turkey's borders and it looks as though he's using NATO's protection to do it.
It's ironic that NATO affords Turkey so much protection given that Turkey funds ISIS, it trades with them, it allows IS
fighters free travel across Turkish borders and it also fights IS enemies for them - the Kurds. Outside of the Gulf, Turkey is
the jihadist's biggest ally.
Gaudd80 24 Nov 2015 18:11
If we are really serious about tackling Islamic extremists, then why is it that we are allied those states directly aiding
them? Cameron is demanding the right to bomb Syria, while at the same time he's grovelling to the Saudis, crawling to the Gulf
States and defending Erdogan. Hammond nearly bust a blood vessel when Skinner said what everyone knows. The whole thing is an
utter sham, you have to wonder if ISIS and the other extremist groups aren't actually hugely convenient for some.
ElDanielfire -> Canuckistan 24 Nov 2015 18:05
Yes the Saudi's created ISIS. but the west helped build them up thinking they were something else because the west kept their
fingers in their ears because they had a gard -on for yet anotehr regime change in the middle east, despite none of the previous
ones (Afghan, Iraq, Libya) having worked and become hell for the citixens of those countries. Also the west always let Saudi and
Qutar get awya with anything, even if they fund groups who attack western citizens. It's tragic.
hfakos 24 Nov 2015 18:04
Well, at least we have seen that those K-36 ejection seats do work; they have reportedly never failed. Of course Turkey,
and Western Europe for that matter, has been playing a double game. Just like in Afghanistan in the 1980s, they prefer the acid-throwers
and head-choppers to a Russian-backed secular regime.
Even the Western MSM has openly reported about and from the staging areas in Turkey, where the jihadists gather before
entering Syria. The US-lead "coalition" is now boasting about bombing ISIL oil convoys, but where has it been for the past few
years? Everybody with a single functioning grey cell knows that Turkey is involved in the ISIS oil smuggling business and allowing
the jihadist to train on its territory.
But Western Europe is complicit too. With all the spying reported by Snowden how is it impossible to prevent thousands of European
citizens from traveling to Turkey and onward to Syria and getting radicalized? It is obvious that we have turned a blind eye to
the jihadi tourism. Funny that only after the Paris attacks did Hollande and co. start to take this constant flow of Europeans
into Syria seriously.
NATO says, two minutes after this incident, that Turkey is right and its airspace has been violated. But all powerful NATO
countries cannot track the returning jihadists and the mastermind of the Paris attacks has just been reported to have mingled
with Paris policemen after the Bataclan massacre. And one guy is still on the run. The first chickens have come home to roost
and there will be more to follow. The West has been playing with fire and will get burned. This is a much more global world with
open borders than what we had in the 1980s, when NATO was supporting the Bin Ladens and Gulbudding Hekmatyars in Afghanistan.
These jihadists will cause more havoc in Europe for certain. And Russia is more right again than NATO, when it comes to jihadists
in Syria.
ID9309755 24 Nov 2015 18:04
Turkey's territorial expansionist ambitions have backfired, just as the ambitions of their Islamism has. The emperor has no
clothes and yet it's difficult to deal with this maniac Erdog effendy who is pushing Turkey towards chaos internally and internationally...
A country which has intellectuals and clever people has fallen under the power of a group of thugs, the story of the region.
i_pray thinkorswim 24 Nov 2015 18:03
One actually feels sorry for Putin. He is bound by a Treaty he signed along time ago with Assad. He is doing what he is obliged
to do under that Treaty and at
the same time he is helping to destroy ISIS.
Then he is attacked up by Turkey a member of NATO, who are supposedly also committed to destroying ISIS .
If I were Putin, I would just walk away and leave the West to sort the mess out . I am sure that Russia feels that it has already
lost too many lives.
Wehadonebutitbroke -> Roland Paterson-Jones 24 Nov 2015 18:00
Erm, yes. The Turkmen who Turkey is protecting have been attacking Kurds. The Turks have been bombing the Kurds, who are
fighting ISIS.
The Turks have been buying ISIS' oil and giving other funding. Weapons funded by Gulf States have almost certainly been
crossing the Turkish border for ISIS. It is suspected the Turkey has been providing a safe haven for ISIS fighters. Tens of thousands
have crossed Turkeys borders to join rebel groups, the chances that some of them have not joined ISIS is nil.
Many of the 'moderate' rebels are Al Qaeda by another name or Al Qaeda affiliates. The Turkmen are Al Qaeda affiliates. The
line between Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria is vague and has been crossed both ways on numerous occasions.
Lest anyone forget, Al Qaeda are themselves have orchestrated huge scale terrorist attacks. But becausing they are fighting
Assad in Syria, who is hated by the Gulf States, Turkey and Israel, unquestioned or criticised almost regardless what they do
by the West allies of the West, apparently Al Qaeda are now fine.
And - does this lend weight to those who have shown that ISIS is a result of the Libyan, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and
that they are mercenaries who have formed an insurgency within Syria for a regime change? A war crime, definitely against international
law.
Roland Paterson-Jones 24 Nov 2015 17:56
Dudes, Turkey is losing some valuable oil supply due to Russia's 'indiscriminate' bombing of ISIS oil-field territory.
Turkey has some real-politik collateral in the form of 'refugees' to mainland Europe. So Turkey, politically, is in a strong
position - EU is shoving money towards them.
Will NATO stand behind Turkey's real-politik?
twosocks 24 Nov 2015 17:54
Just watched the videos and listened to the turkish warnings. The SU24 appears to have been heading south as requested by the
turks and in syria when it was hit. It also looks like the turks entered Syrian airspace before they fired on the Russians - just
like the 1000+ times they have entered greek airspace in the last year, including one time with 8 planes at the same time.
In the warnings at no point do the turks actually say the russians are in turkish airspace, just that they are heading
towards it; they also do not threaten to fire upon the Russians like the RAF do over here when they issue a warning. Normally
the defending plane would come alongside the transgressor to escort them out the airspace, here they just just shoot at the russians
without issuing a warning. It also appears that there just so happened to be a tv crew there perfectly poised to film it - what
a coincidence. There is no way we are getting dragged into a war over this.
Adrian Rides 24 Nov 2015 17:54
The whole rotten scam is coming undone. No one believes the mainstream media any more. I skip the articles and go straight
to the comments. That's where you find out what's really going on. Thank you for all the insightful comments. The truth will set
us free
rumelian -> kmw2402 24 Nov 2015 17:49
YES, and the lesson for the West should be: Please stop supporting Erdogan and his fellow islamists. Watching events for a
decade and praising the relentless efforts of a single party and it's (now former) leader to suppress secular Turks and eroding
the pillars of the secular Turkish Republic, in the name of stability in the region, you actually create much instability and
threat, both for the region, and for Europe. Squeeze down these so called "moderate" islamists, and with real pro-European Turks
taking lead again, you will not have unexpected and complicated acts from Turkey .
thorella -> BigNowitzki 24 Nov 2015 17:48
'It is in West's interest that ISIS would spill into Russia one day and do the dirty job there for US and its associates.'
Totally logical
jaybee2 24 Nov 2015 17:46
Well said Pres Putin and hats off to Denis Skinner in parliament!
Turkey is a disgrace and should be booted out of NATO.
It bombs the Kurds fighting lsis barbarians, buys oil from lsis, protects anti Assad terrorists from the Syrian army, helps
finance various 'moderate' terrorists as to its shame does this Tory government!
As the 'heir to Blair' Cameron is drooling at the thought of joining in on the bloodlust!
Thank you Mr Skinner, and Hammond, what a silly man!
MatthewH1 24 Nov 2015 17:46
Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'?
Yes.
Oh, and the "rebels" shooting the pilots as they made their descent is a war crime.
quaidesbrumes 24 Nov 2015 17:43
Guardian reports:
"Turkey said one of its US-made F-16 fighters fired on the Russian plane when it entered Turkish airspace after having
been warned on its approach to the Turkish border through a 13-mile no-fly zone inside Syria it had declared in July."
By what right does Turkey declare a 13 mile no fly zone inside Syria? This is clearly grounds for believing that the Russian
jet was in fact shot down over Syria and not Turkey.
Turkey has overplayed its hand and Erdogan's strategy and tactics in respect of Syria are now in tatters. NATO will be
scrambling to put the frighteners on Erdogan who is clearly a loose cannon and totally out of his depth.
lisbon_calling 24 Nov 2015 17:43
The answer to the question in the title is absolutely clear after reading the very informative text.
Quite interestingly, yesterday, Russians claimed that in the past two previous days they have made 472 attacks on oil infrastructure
and oil-trucks controlled by ISIS, which is obviously the right thing to do if you want to derange their sources of financing
- but, apparently, the 'training partners' of ISIS are reacting...
MrMeinung DavidJayB 24 Nov 2015 17:38
Turkish fighters are violating Greek airspace habitually since decades. And not for mere seconds. The Greeks intercept them
but do not shoot them down. The Greeks have brought all kinds of electronic documentation to both NATO and EU - no result.
It is ironic that Turkey of all nations is raising such arguments.
This action is inexcusable and the barbarity that followed (by all information) - the execution of the pilot/pilots - by Turkish
friendly fighters, even more so.
LordJimbo -> CommieWealth 24 Nov 2015 17:38
Countries are operating on the basis of their national interests, Assad and Kurds represent threats to Turkey, Russia wants
Assad to remain and sees IS and rebel groups (some of whom are reportedly backed by Turkey) as threats, so we see a classic clash
of national interests in an already complicated region of the world, topped off by a brutal civil war that has cost the lives
of over 200,000 and seen one of the worst humanitarian crises since WWII. The very definition of a perfect political and military
storm. I suspect the Russian position will eventually win out in Syria especially now that Hollande wants IS targeted by a 'grand
coalition'. For Turkey the major headache has to be the Kurds who will get arms, training and are winning huge amounts of territory.
powercat123 24 Nov 2015 17:36
Russia was invited into support Assad by Syrias leader whether we or Nato like it or not. Turkey France and US were not.
Turkeys Air force will have to watch itself now as I suspect Russia will deploy fighter aircraft to protect there bombers and
the Kurds. As for the original question I think Putin may be right and Turks do have a foot in both camps. Nato should be very
aware of the consequences of playing the whose to blame game when the stakes are so high.
ManxApe 24 Nov 2015 17:36
Which Turkish businessmen did they strike deals with? Specifically which Turkish businessman's shipping company had their oil
tankers bombed the other day by Russia? Is this businessman actually a very close relative of Erdoğan? A clue perhaps?Allegedly
the shipping company is BMZ.
196thInfantry -> Artur Conka 24 Nov 2015 17:35
The Russian plane was never in Turkish airspace. ATC systems have recorders that record voice communications, radar tracks
and controller actions all synchronized. You can be sure that the Turks will not release the raw recorded data.
aLLaguz 24 Nov 2015 17:32
So, Turkey downs a Russian bomber and immediately runs to its daddies ?!?! C'mon! What a joke!!
This is the long awaited war for the Syria-Turkey border, a border that must be closed. Whether for stop jihadists joining ISIS
or to stop oil sales.
No fly-zone in northern Syria ?! The only affected parties with this is Assad allies and it is the same reason.... the Syria-Turkey
border. For Assad, It is a key region, Kurds must be stopped to reach the Mediterranean sea, the border must be closed to stop
jihadists or rebels to join the fight, to stop the oil sales of ISIS, etc, etc, etc.
Russia will fight for the control of the border whether NATO like it or not. Once it is Russian, Kurds will be pushed back.
Cecile_Trib -> penguinbird 24 Nov 2015 17:32
Turkey must learn to stop invading Greece airspace. Or you think it's OK for them as a member of NATO to do that? Or will you
say it's OK for Greece to down a couple of Turkish jets?
"In the first month of 2014 alone, Turkish aircraft allegedly violated Greek airspace 1,017 times, Gurcan reports."
Ha ha, your post is bordering on...no is, sheer arrogance and complete ignorance.The Russian planes are defined as entering
"an area of our interest".Which is really vague and is really international airspace.Both the US and UK do the same but more often.Moreover
Russia is being surrounded by NATO firepower,missile systems and US paid for coups!
NezPerce 24 Nov 2015 17:31
Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'? Yes
Turkey are directly linked to Al Qaeda as is Saudi Arabia yet they are our allies in the never ending war against terrorism,
a war it seems we forgot about when the terrorists became repackaged as freedom fighters. Many of us have been warning that this
would inevitably lead us to become victims of the Jihadists but Cameron would not listen, he has a mania to get rid of Assad and
has been prepared to get into bed with some of the nastiest people in the world. A New take on the Nasty party.
Turkey 'let Isil cross border to attack Kobane': as it happened
Today's early morning, a group of five cars, loaded with 30-35 of Isil elements, wearing the clothes and raising the flag
of the FSA [Free Syrian Army rebels] has undertaken a suicide attack.
The nationalist Southern Front, which includes US-trained fighters, has confirmed that it is taking part in the fight for
Daraa, alongside the powerful Islamist groups Ahrar al-Sham and the Al Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.
BigNowitzki -> BeatonTheDonis 24 Nov 2015 17:29
Turkish government giving military support to ethnic Turks in a neighbouring country = good.
Russian government giving military support to ethnic Russians in a neighbouring country = bad.
Good point. I imagine the Putinbots will try and rationalise it away via cognitive dissonance, or some other bogus reason.
As I said, Russia's position would be much stronger had they not invaded and occupied part of Ukraine. They were warned....
MaxBoson 24 Nov 2015 17:26
Thanks to the author for pointing out the role Turkey has played in the rise of ISIS, and its instrumentalization of the conflict
in Syria for its own ends. Taking this, and Turkey's support for the Turkmen rebels-or terrorists, or freedom fighters, depending
on which alliance one is supporting-into account, it is pretty obvious that the main reason why Turkey shot down the Russian planes
was that they were bombing Turkmen targets in what Turkey has the cheek to call a no-fly zone, not because their wings were in
its airspace for a few milliseconds.
deathbydemocracy 24 Nov 2015 17:23
Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey 'accomplices of terrorists'?
Answer below.
Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that "my enemy's enemy is my friend"
and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces
raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf.
A trawl through Sayyaf's compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish
officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had "urgent policy implications".
That would be a 'Yes'.
Of course Turkey has a right to defend it's borders. In this case though, their borders were not under attack. The Russian
plane strayed into Turkish air space for just a few seconds, and it was clearly not part of an attack force against Turkey. The
correct move would have been to complain about the Russians, not shoot them down.
robitsme -> BillyBitter 24 Nov 2015 17:23
Most states would show some restraint under the tinderbox circumstances. Erdogan is either completely insane, or he is playing
a game, he as an agenda to provoke Russia in some way
rumelian -> JaneThomas 24 Nov 2015 17:21
You are right. Erdogan with his "conservative" comerades is rapidly and relentlessly ruining the the pillars of the secular
Turkey for more than a decade, and for much of this time he was actively aided by the Western powers, frequently praized and portrayed
as a "moderate" islamist and a reliable partner. The more power he gained, the more he showed his real nature.
Dreaming of becoming a "leader" of the muslim world (in the Middle East), countless times he showed his sympathy towards the
fellow "islamists" in the whole region. USA and Western European leaders, still assume that Erdogan is better option than anyone
else in Turkey, providing stability and a "buffer zone" to Europe, they ignore the fact, that Turkey was indeed a reliable partner
for decades, when ruled by secular governments ,backed by a secular army, but now that's not the case. Western governments now
don't know how to deal with it. When you look at the photos of the current Turkish ministers, and their wives (almost all are
headscarved) you realize that they had nothing in common with millions of Turkish people who embraced Western lifestyle and customs.
Ataturk has created a secular nation, suppressed these islamists almost a century ago for good, knowing their true nature, but
now Turkey needs a new Ataturk-style leader to eradicate this pestilence. Until then, Turkey will not be a stable and reliable
partner in the Middlle East.
Darook523 24 Nov 2015 17:20
Payback for the Russians bombing ISIS oil convoys? Would Turkey shoot down a Russian air force jet without the nod from
allies? Situation getting very dangerous I would think.
vr13vr -> WarlockScott 24 Nov 2015 17:19
"the US could potentially extract a lot out of it "
It could but at the end of the day, can't and won't. The US is not going to split NATO so it will have to offer its support
for Turkey. Nor can Europeans do much as they have this "refugees" problem to which Turkey hold the key. And even if something
is extracted in return, at the end of the day, NATO and the US will be defacto protecting the islamists, which is Turkey's goal.
You can say NATO and the US are fucked now because they will have to do what they didn't want to do at all.
PaniscusTroglodytes -> MrConservative2015 24 Nov 2015 17:18
NATO has had no legitimate purpose for 25 years now. Will this finally give the nudge to wind it up? One can but hope.
Yarkob -> Gglloowwiinngg 24 Nov 2015 17:17
The first reports said it was a Turkish F-16 with an AA missile. Some reports are still saying that. Damage limitation or diversion
by Erdogan? The 10th Brigade Turkmen that Debka said carried out the attack are aligned with the US. That conveniently shifts
the blame from Turkey back to the US by proxy. Back stabbing going on. Julius Ceasar shit going down I reckon
vgnych 24 Nov 2015 17:10
It is in West's interest that ISIS would spill into Russia one day and do the dirty job there for US and its associates. Syria
and Asad has been just a dry run of the concept.
Putin must be seeing it very clear at this point.
Yarkob Gglloowwiinngg 24 Nov 2015 17:07
Attacking people parachuting from an aircraft in distress is a war crime under Protocol I in addition to the 1949 Geneva
Conventions.
LordJimbo 24 Nov 2015 17:06
From a Russian perspective the opening paragraphs of article speak for themselves. Russian entry into the 'game' meant
Turkey became a second category power in a region they have sought to dominate, the strike is a sign of weakness and not strength
and whoever sanctioned it (done so quickly you'd wonder if Ankara was aware) is an amateur player because it weakened Turkey and
strengthened the Russian hand.
Gideon Mayre 24 Nov 2015 17:05
Of course Putin is right but he only tells part of the story. The main accomplice of terrorists and other non-existent
so called "moderate" head-choppers is the United States, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel are merely facilitating this policy
on behalf of the US and in accordance to their independent regional pursuits, that converge however on the removal of Assad and
the use of ISIS as a proxy army to remove Assad.
Michael Cameron 24 Nov 2015 17:05
Events like today's become a useful window on an otherwise murky, indecipherable geopolitics. In the fraught aftermath
of the Paris attacks, we should do our best to see ISIS for what they are and have always been: the entree to the main course
proxy war between Russia and Western allied interests.
The idea they're an imminent threat and immediate concern of Cameron and co suddenly hoves into view as hogwash on stilts.
Their grandstanding over bombing ISIS while at once supporting their biggest enabler (Can anyone doubt Turkey's laissez-faire
stance?) makes sense as an admission of complete powerlessness to resolve an issue above his pay grade i.e. taking on Putin. The
extent to which all of these actors are clueless is terrifying. Foreign policy operations as fitful and faltering as anything
this side of the Christmas board game.
fantas1sta 24 Nov 2015 17:04
Turkey has been looking for reasons to invade Syria for a long time:
"The reason why worse incidents have not taken place in the past regarding Syria is the cool-headedness of Turkey," Erdoğan
said. "Nobody should doubt that we made our best efforts to avoid this latest incident. But everyone should respect the right
of Turkey to defend its borders."
The arrogance of this man is beyond belief, as Al Jazeera reported that the plane, believed to be a Russian-made Sukhoi Su-24,
crashed in Syrian territory in Latakia's Yamadi village and NOT in Turkish Airspace. What I love about this statement is the "cool-headedness
of Turkey".
What about the headless act of supporting ISIS, and what about the fact that Turkey has some of the worst crackdown of journalist
and freedom of speech of any country. Far worse then China.
I truly don't understand how Nato and Turkey's allies support its actions, especially the US. Could someone please explain.
WarlockScott 24 Nov 2015 17:03
Turkey is kinda fucked now, the US could potentially extract a lot out of it in return for 'protection'... For instance stop
murdering Kurds or cut off all ISIS links, hell maybe even both. There's no way Erdoğan can play Putin as the counterbalance card
now.
arkob 24 Nov 2015 17:02
Methinks the wheels are falling off the Syrian project and there is a scramble for the door and people are getting stabbed
in the back all over the shop.
Look at the leaks over the last few weeks implicating the US DoD, Turkey, France and soon the UK, now Obama is telling us his
intel assessments were "tainted" *cough*
Today a Russian plane goes down and first of all it's Turkey's fault, but Turkey wouldn't have done that without explicit
permission to do so from either NATO or the US, but then a few hours later as it all looks really bad for Turkey (and by association
everyone else in the "coalition") it turns out to have been Turkmen, but which ones? There's two factions, one is a "rebel" group
backed by the US, the other is a "terrorist" group (aligned with "ISIS") and backed by the US. They are both fighting Assad.
More to come in the next few days, I reckon.
Branislav Stosic 24 Nov 2015 17:01
Cards can definitely be open to see :who wisely silent is on the terrorists side( read USA) and who is really against. There
wont be some of the current uncertainties and media acting in this struggle. I hope that at least the European countries together
wake up their unhealthy slumber after the terrorist actions in the neighborhood and together, not only in words ,start to put
out the source of the fire and of terrorism in which some cunning players constantly topping oil on the fire.
madtoothbrush -> QueenElizabeth 24 Nov 2015 17:00
It's a well known fact that Turkey purchases oil from ISIS occupied territory. Not to mention they bomb Kurds that are fighting
ISIS.
Vizier 24 Nov 2015 16:56
Perhaps Russia would like to provide air cover to the Kurds who are under murderous assault by Turkey in their own country.
Carving about 20% off Turkey would be a good start.
Gglloowwiinngg 24 Nov 2015 16:55
Senator John McCain can be thankful the North Vietnamese were not as bad as these Turkmen Turks. "Turkmen militiamen in
Syria claimed to have shot the pilots as they descended on parachutes from the stricken Su-24 bomber." What the Turkmen brag about
having done is something neither the North Vietnamese nor the actual Nazis would have condoned.
NezPerce 24 Nov 2015 16:55
By then, Isis had become a dominant presence in parts of north and east Syria.
This is the problem, Turkey is in a struggle with Iran and the Kurds. Assad is seen as the enemy because he is closer to Iran.
It should be remembered that the Turks see the Kurds as biggest the threat and ISIS as an ally and that the U.S. not Russia
has been arming the Kurds. It looks as if the Turks also want to send a message to the US and Europe, a message via air to air
missile.
The issue has highlighted the widening gulf between Turkey and its Western allies, who have frequently questioned
why Turkey, a NATO member with a large military and well-regarded intelligence service, is not doing more to address the jihadist
threat.
In recent testimony in Washington before Congress, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, was asked
if he was optimistic that Turkey would do more in the fight against the Islamic State.
"No, I'm not," Mr. Clapper said in an unusually blunt public criticism. "I think Turkey has other priorities and
other interests."
Georwell -> musterfritz 24 Nov 2015 16:54
nop, just an pair of fighters patrolling the zone 24/7 , since the radars told them the russians daily pattern on bombing the
terrorists, AND an green-card to kill a russian plane on first occasion, even if that mind to (again) enter on syrian air space,
for the matter. Fact is, the russian pilots do not believe the turks will really open fire - now they know - in the hard way;
Was that an planed ambush ? I bet was.
Was a war crime to execute on mid-air the pilots descending on parachute ? Yes it was. Was a war crime to assault the body
of the dead pilot ? (are several pictures on the net showing the pilot body stripped and pieces of flesh missing) - yes, was another
war crime. All on the line of liver-eaters and "moderate" terrorists.
Maybe when those animals will target another EU capital the peoples will realize who its the true enemy here. For (to many..)
bigots here the tragedy on Paris was not enough to bring them the the real picture.
Aneel Amdani -> musterfritz 24 Nov 2015 16:50
Russia did coordinate with other coalition members of US so I suppose Turkey should have been aware of this. F-16 should have
bene in air and giving 10 warnings is utter nonsense. Russia has said no warning was given and their plane was in Syria territory.
Turkey has a rule of engagement that their territory and threat are well in 5 km of Syria itself. So they take it as a threat.
Turkey has gone nuts. they have first increased terrorism and now officially become the Air Force of SIIS. or more, they should
have shown a response to Russians for busting more than 1000 oil tnakers that supply cheap oil to Turkey.
rumelian -> jonsid 24 Nov 2015 16:49
Surely, Russia will respond to that incident. I supposed it was not at all expected by Russians, and they will figure out a
strategy on what kind of response it will be. I think too, that consequences for Turkey could be serious . But maybe it is a destiny
for a country where almost half of the population votes for the corrupt, backward islamists, and their megalomaniac leader.
copyniated 24 Nov 2015 16:48
Let's assume that this lying ISIS loving terrorist, Erdogan, is speaking the truth. He says Russia has been attacking Syrian
Turkoman who are defending their land.
One should ask this blood-thirsty ape this question: What then are Kurdish people in Turkey doing?
HuggieBear -> Mindmodic 24 Nov 2015 16:47
"I get the impression that a greater proportion of people in the US are blinded by patriotism" - patriotism would actually
require disengaging with the mediaeval oil monarchies of the Middle East and butting out of the world's hot spots. Something Pat
Buchanan has advocated for aged.
Aneel Amdani 24 Nov 2015 16:44
the residents of France and Belgium should ask their governments why did they let it to happen in the first place. ISIS was
created by West and funded extensively by the Saudis, Turley and Qatar. US is not a kid that after spending more than a 100 billion
on intelligence and CIA networks globally, never knew ISIS was getting rich. And now so when everyone knows Turkey buys cheap
Oil from ISIS, why aren't they being sectioned or why individuals donating funds to these terrorists being sanctioned.
US is very prompt in going and sanctioning nations that are not with them, but they never sanction dictators like the kings
and presidents that support terrorism. the blood of those who died in Paris and those all along since the war in Iraq are all
to be blamed on these war hawks in west. If even now Paris cannot ask questions on their governments involvement in destabilizing
Libya now, then I guess they will again see Paris happen again. West should be stopped from using the name of terrorism and a
Muslim Jihad for their own strategic gains.
jmNZ -> earthboy 24 Nov 2015 16:38
That's the whole problem. The banksters and corporations that run the US have too much to lose in Saudi Arabia and the
Persian gulf. And they want that pipeline from the Gulf to the Levant but Syria (with its secular ruler, hated by the jihadists)
won't play ball with the banksters. Hence, with American corporations' blessing, Turkey and Arabia loose the Daesh on them . And
al-Qeada and al-Nusra and all the other "moderate" rebels supplied with modern weapons by American arms corporations.
fantas1sta Roger -> Hudson 24 Nov 2015 16:36
Turkey has spent a lot of time and money to cultivate an image of itself as a modern, secular, democratic state - it is none
of those. It's an ally of the US like Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US, it's a marriage of convenience, nothing else. The US
knows that both countries fund terrorists, but they need some kind of presence in that region. The Turks and Saudis need a customer
for their oil and someone to run to when they need their autocratic regimes propped up.
Roger Hudson 24 Nov 2015 16:29
Turkey buys ISIL oil.
Turkey helps foreign terrorists to get to ISIL.
Turkey attacks Kurds fighting ISIL.
Turkey facilitates the route of people including terrorists into Europe.
Turkey is run by a megalomaniac.
Turkey got into NATO as a US/CIA anti -Russian (USSR) puppet.
What the sort of corrupt people like Hammond think of their people, fools. Of course Turkey is on the 'wrong side'.
fantas1sta -> MaryMagdalane 24 Nov 2015 16:29
There's no reason for the US to directly antagonize one of the few countries in the world that has a military strong enough
to enact its policy goals without the backing of another power - see Crimea. Why would Obama order a Russian plane to be shot
down and then call for de-escalation?
Erm on balance, yes. Empirically, provably more repugnant. Russia hasn't killed well over a million civilians since 2001, nor
laid waste to an entire region, causing untold misery and suffering, screwing allies and enemies alike and helping (both by accident
and design) the rise of ISIS. I'm no fan of Putin, and let's be honest, there's no nice people at that level in politics, but
the US is far and away ahead of Russia on the dick-ometer these last 20-30 years.
Budovski Ximples 24 Nov 2015 16:23
Yes, of course he's right. What's wrong is that its taken journalists this long to even dare to look at the relationship between
Turkey and Islamic State. Or specifically, Erdogan and Islamic State.
Turkey has been directly dealing with various terrorist groups in Syria, supplying weapons, fighters, intelligence and arms
as well as buying massive amounts of oil from ISIS refineries (which Russia just pulverized).
They have left their borders open, allowing terrorists to go in and out of Syria as they please.
Their claims to be fighting ISIS are a joke. In their first week of 'fighting ISIS' they did 350 strikes on the Kurds and literally
1 on ISIS.
The terrorist attack by ISIS, aimed at Erdogans opponents, was timed so perfectly to help Sultan Erdogan get elected that I'd
go as far as suspect direct Turkish intelligence involvement.
Bonnemort 24 Nov 2015 16:21
Turkey are complicit in terrorism, but then so are the Gulf States/Saudis/US and UK. They're just a bit closer and their hands
a bit bloodier. Putin is correct,
Just think, only two years ago Cameron wanted us to join the Syrian civil war on ISIS' side.
And also think - Cameron and Boris Johnson want Turkey to be a full EU member as soon as possible.
Roger Hudson -> Samir Rai 24 Nov 2015 16:21
Turkey was let (pulled) into NATO during the cold war just so US missiles and spy bases could get up on the USSR border. Turkey
was run by a military junta at that time.
Same old CIA/US nonsense.
Turkey should be kicked out of NATO and never be allowed near the EU.
photosymbiosis -> kahaal 24 Nov 2015 16:04
Ah, the oil smuggling route to Turkey runs right through a zone controlled by these 'moderates' - perhaps middlemen is a better
word? - and so you can't really cut off the flow of oil out of ISIS areas without bombing those convoys even if they are under
the temporary protection of "moderates" - so it looks like Turkish oil smugglers and their customers (Bilal Erdogan's shipping
company? commodities brokers? other countries in the region?) are working hand in hand with ISIS and the moderates to deliver
some $10 million a week to ISIS - and that's how terrorists in Brussels can establish safe houses, purchase weapons and explosives
on the black market, and stage attacks - isn't it?
Alexander Hagen 24 Nov 2015 16:02
That is interesting that Erdogan and Assad were on good terms previously. That is hard to fathom. I cannot imagine two people
with more differing world views. I did not meet a single Turk while travelling through Turkey that had a kind word about Erdogan,
so elevating him to a higher level (mentor) might require some qualification. Though it is true the Turkish economy grew enormously
under Erdogan, "The lights of free expression are going out one by one" - paraphrasing Churchill.
cop1nghagen 24 Nov 2015 16:01
"Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (£6.6m) per week to the terror
group's coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client."
Why doesn't The Guardian grow a pair and investigate the role of Turkish President Erdogan in this illegal oil trade, specifically
through his son Bilal Erdogan, whose shipping company (jointly owned with two of Erdogan's brothers) BMZ Group has a rapidly expanding
fleet of oil tankers...
photosymbiosis 24 Nov 2015 16:01
Would anyone be surprised to find that the accomplices of ISIS in Turkey - i.e. the oil smugglers who operate with the full
knowledge of the Turkish government - are also transferring cash on behalf of ISIS to their 'recruiters and activists' (aka: 'terrorists')
in places like London, Paris, Brussels, etc.?
The lure of oil profits make relationships with terrorists very attractive, it seems - kind of like how Royal Dutch Shell and
Standard Oil kept selling oil to the Nazi U-boat fleet right up to 1942, when the US Congress finally passed the Trading With
The Enemy Act.
Konstantin Murakhtin, a navigator who was rescued in a joint operation by Syrian and Russian commandos, told Russian media: "There
were no warnings, either by radio or visually. There was no contact whatsoever."
He also denied entering Turkish airspace. "I could see perfectly on the map and on the ground where the border was and where we
were. There was no danger of entering Turkey," he said.
The apparent hardening of both countries' versions of events came as Russian warplanes carried out heavy raids in Syria's northern
Latakia province, where the plane came down. Tuesday's incident – the first time a Nato member state has shot down a Russian warplane
since the Korean war – risks provoking a clash over the ongoing conflict in Syria, where Russia has intervened to prop up the regime
of Bashar al-Assad.
... ... ...
Later, in a telephone call with John Kerry, the US secretary of state, Lavrov said Turkey's actions were a "gross violation" of
an agreement between Moscow and Washington on air space safety over Syria. The state department said Kerry called for calm and more
dialogue between Turkish and Russian officials.
... ... ...
Russian officials made it clear that despite the fury the reaction would be measured. There is no talk of a military response,
and no suggestion that diplomatic relations could be cut or the Turkish ambassador expelled from Moscow. However, the tone of relations
between the two countries is likely to change dramatically.
... ... ...
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, hit out at the US state department official Mark Toner, who said the
Turkmen fighters who shot the Russian airman as he parachuted to the ground could have been acting in self defence. "Remember these
words, remember them forever. I will never forget them, I promise," Zakharova wrote on Facebook.
"... Recently, Moscow's rapprochement with the Syrian Kurds, the PYD, only added to the huge complexity of the situation. ..."
"... any solution of the Syrian conflict will be based on a precondition that the US and Russia put aside their differences, ..."
"... At least one good thing has come from all of this. At least it took Putin to be the first leader to openly say exactly what turkey actually is. A despicable, Islamist supporting vile wolf in Sheep's clothing. ..."
"... well , just think for a second .... all the image - they were shooting him while he was in the air , shouting "Allah Akbar " then they showed a photo with dead pilot , being proud of that ..... Those ppl are the "hope" for a Syria post-Assad....don't you feel that something is wrong here ? ..."
"... Also as soon as the noble Turkman started shooting at the pilot and navigator once they'd bailed out of the plane they showed themselves to be the terrorists they are. Playing "no prisoners" against Russia. ..."
"... At the G20 Antalya summit of Nov 15, Putin embarrassed Obama publicly showing satellite pictures of ridiculously long tanker lines waiting for weeks to load oil from ISIS, as the coalition spared them any trouble. "I've shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil," said Putin. ..."
"... So there you have it. For 15 months, the US didn't touch the oil trade that financed ISIS affairs, until Russia shamed them into it. Then, the mightiest army in the world bombs 400 trucks, while Russia destroys 1000. Then Russia provides videos of its airstrikes, while the US doesn't, and PBS is caught passing off Russian evidence as American. ..."
"... Of course Turkey did not need to down this jet: well planned and a clear provocation to start the propaganda war against Russia which actually wants to stop this war before a transition without a pre-planned (US) outcome. ..."
"... With Saudi and Turkish support for ISIS , just who have they bothered saving and sending out into Europe amongst their name taking and slaughters ? Wahabists? How many cells set up now globally? ..."
"... The turkmen are illegally staging war. Russia is the only country legally in Syria. That's why CIA, Saudi, Turk, Israel etc etc etc operate clandestine. But they all enjoy bombing hotheads. A pity so many of them think their brands of religion or old stories from centuries ago of enemies have any bearing today. Or perhaps they just believe rich mens newspapers and media too much. Maybe all their educations and futures were lost by gangsters that were funded and protected and given country ownership for oil and now forces clean up their centuries long mess for newer deals. ..."
"... I thought Russia was INVITED by the Syrian Gov. to assist them in eradicating ALL rebel factions including a bunch of Turkmen rebels funded by Erdogan. No others operating in Syria are legitimate. Any cowards shouting Allah uakbar and killing POWs should be eradicated ..."
"... According to the BBC the Turkmen fight with Al Nusra. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34910389 UN Resolution 2249 calls not only for action against IS but also Al Nusra and other AQ associated groups. ..."
"... I also know Turkey has been "laundering" ISIS oil from Syria and Iraq to the tune of $2 million/day. ..."
"... Well, a US Air Force has now also suggested that the Turkish shooting down of the Russian had to have been a pre-planned provocation. Also US officials have said it cannot be confirmed that the Russian jet incurred into Turkish territory. And of course there is the testimony of the Russian pilot. ..."
"... What ethnic cleansing??? Assad has a multi sect and multi ethnic government. Meanwhile western and Turkish backed jihadist have openly said they will massacre every last Kurd,Christian,Alawi and Druze in the country. ..."
"... Shooting down the Russian plane was Turkey's way of flexing its muscles. The murder of the pilot in the parashoot was a cowardly act. These are the people the US are backing. They can be added to Obama's list of most favored and join the ranks of the Saudis who behead and crucify protesters ..."
"... Erdogan is playing both NATO and Russia for fools. Trying to create a wedge and sabotage the restoration of stability in Syria. ..."
"... It is all a giant make-believe. They are only using ISIS as a pretext to occupy and breakup Syria. And Western populations swallow all these lies without blinking and feel victimized by refugees. ..."
"... Now, I'd bet that Putin has no plans to exacerbate the current situation by shooting down any Turkish jets out of revenge for yesterday's incident. But it will be unsettling for Turkish flyboys and their bosses to know that a good chunk of their a airspace is totally vulnerable and they fly there only because Russia lets them. ..."
"... it's astonishing how many of the Putin hating NATObots from the Ukrainian-themed CIF threads turn out to be ISIS supporters. ..."
"... indeed, with the "stench" of US grand mufti all over them.. How far do you think Obama will bow on his next visit to Saudi. ..."
"... Yup the FT estimated before the Russians got involved that ISIS were producing between 30,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil a day. You would need over 2000 full size road tankers just to move one days output. Now its fair to assume after filling up it takes more than a day before it gets back to the pump. Surprisingly the US has neither noticed all these tankers and even more surprisingly the oil tanks and installations. ..."
"... The whole regime change plan is hanging in the balance and every day Russia solidifies Assad's position. If this continues for even another month it will be virtually impossible for the Western alliance to demand the departure of Assad. ..."
"... Their bargaining position is diminishing by the day and it is great to watch. Also good to read that the Russians have been pounding the shi*e out of those Turkmen areas. Expect those silly buggers to be slaughtered whilst Erdogan and the Turks watch on helplessly. If they even try anything inside the Syrian border now the Russians will annihilate them. ..."
"... Erdogan's reaction to Syria shooting down a Turkish jet in 2012. "Erdogan criticized Syria harshly on Tuesday for shooting down the Turkish fighter jet, saying: "Even if the plane was in their airspace for a few seconds, that is no excuse to attack." "It was clear that this plane was not an aggressive plane. Still it was shot down," the corrupt ISIS supporting scumbag said" ..."
The nervousness displayed by the AKP administration, in Ankara, has a lot to do with Turkey's Syria policy being in ever-growing
disarray, and its failure to set priorities to help resolve the conflict. As the Syrian quagmire deepened, old anti-Kurdish fixations
in Ankara came to the surface, and clashed with the priorities of its allies, centred on Isis. Ankara's blocking moves against the
only combat force on ground, the PKK-YPG axis, has impeded the fight against jihadists, and its constant redrawing of red-lines (Kurds,
Turkmens, no-fly zone, Assad gone etc) may have been frustrating the White House, but does not seem to affect Moscow. Recently,
Moscow's rapprochement with the Syrian Kurds, the PYD, only added to the huge complexity of the situation.
In the recent G20 summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was once more keen to underline that "terror has no religion and there
should be no our terrorist and your terrorist"
... ... ...
So, the tension now rises between one determined and one undecided, conflicted player – one lucid on strategy, the other lacking
it. If any, the lesson to be drawn from this showdown is this: any solution of the Syrian conflict will be based on a precondition
that the US and Russia put aside their differences, agree in principle on the future of the region, build a joint intelligence
gathering and coordinated battle scheme against jihadists, and demand utter clarity of the positions of their myopic, egocentric
allies. Unless they do so, more complications, and risks beyond turf wars will be knocking at the door
Eugenios -> André De Koning 25 Nov 2015 23:24
Assad is targeted because it is a necessary prelude to an attack on Iran. Pepe Escobar called that long ago. What is sought
is a Syria in the imperialist orbit or in chaos.
Attack on Iran by whom--you ask? Actually several in cahoots, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, et al.
A brief search on the internet shows many items referring to Turkish support for IS.
Now the SAA with Russian support is on the border dealing with the jihadist Turkmen, Turkey's duplicity is in danger of being
revealed .
Hence the impotent rage and desperate pleas for support to its other US coalition partners and the strange reluctance of the
complicit western MSM to fully reveal the lies and double standards of the western allies in this foul business.
Only the other day a US TV program was trying to con its viewers that the US was bombing ISIS oil trucks, with video from a
Russian airstrike.
At least one good thing has come from all of this. At least it took Putin to be the first leader to openly say exactly
what turkey actually is. A despicable, Islamist supporting vile wolf in Sheep's clothing. Who else was buying ISIS oil....the
tooth fairy ? Never in my life did I think I'd be defending the red team yet here I am.
AtelierEclatPekin -> murati 25 Nov 2015 23:06
well , just think for a second .... all the image - they were shooting him while he was in the air , shouting "Allah Akbar
" then they showed a photo with dead pilot , being proud of that ..... Those ppl are the "hope" for a Syria post-Assad....don't
you feel that something is wrong here ?
Shankman -> ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 23:02
He was awfully quick to accept Turkey's version of events.
As for his Nobel "Peace" Prize, Alfred Nobel is probably still turning in his grave.
Lyigushka -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 23:02
Of course Turkey supports ISIS and has done for all its existence as part of an opposition to its main enemies, Assad and the
Kurds.
.....and the censors are out again.....SHAME on you Guardian.
I say again.....MSM now referring to "Turkmen" like they are cuddly toys FFS
They are head chopping....moon howling....islamo-terrorists.
Russia has the right idea....kill the lot them
ianhassall -> ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 22:56
Also as soon as the noble Turkman started shooting at the pilot and navigator once they'd bailed out of the plane they
showed themselves to be the terrorists they are. Playing "no prisoners" against Russia.
And as for the US - they can bomb a Medicin sans Frontiers field hospital in Afghanistan for 37 minutes and the best excuse
they come out with is "the plane's email stopped working, it didn't know where the target was, they didn't know where they were,
so they just attacked something that looked like". So much for US military's navigation abilities.
NikLot -> LordMurphy 25 Nov 2015 22:44
Dear Lord, where did I defend it?!! How do you read that?!!! Of course it is appalling!!!
I wanted to point out that the 'good terrorist' Turkmen militia or whoever else did it would have done the same to NATO
pilots and that the story should be explored from that angle too. Statement by Turkey's PM today, if true, confirms my concern:
"Davutoglu told his party's lawmakers on Wednesday that Turkey didn't know the nationality of the plane that was brought
down on Tuesday until Moscow announced it was Russian."
ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 22:38
Its amazing that NATO have been bombing ISIS for 2 years and did very little to halt its progress.
Russia's been doing it for a month and have bombed ISIS, the military supplies NATO have been giving ISIS, and the illegal
oil racket that Turkey's been running with ISIS - all at a fraction of the cost that's going into supporting ISIS and other Syrian
terrorist groups.
I can see why Turkey's upset. Also anyone who thinks Turkey shot down this plane without the approval of NATO and Obama is
kidding themselves. Obama has blood up to his armpits with what's been going on in Syria, despite his Peace Prize credentials.
luella zarf -> ArundelXVI 25 Nov 2015 22:28
OK I did some research and I was somewhat wrong, Russia did initiate the bombing of the oil delivery system, but at the G20
summit. This is the actual chronology:
At the G20 Antalya summit of Nov 15, Putin embarrassed Obama publicly showing satellite pictures of ridiculously long tanker
lines waiting for weeks to load oil from ISIS, as the coalition spared them any trouble. "I've shown our colleagues photos taken
from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil," said Putin.
The next day, on Nov 16, the US bombed a truck assembly for the first time in the history of the coalition and then claimed
to have hit 116 oil tankers. In the meantime, Russia carried on its own airstrike campaign, destroying more than 1,000 tankers
and a refinery in a period of just five days, and posting video footage of the airstrikes.
Because the US never made available any recordings, on Nov 19 PBS used footage of Russian fighter jets bombing an oil storage
facility and passed it off as evidence of the US hits. The Moon of Alabama website was the first to notice. On Nov 23, a second
American air raid claimed to have destroyed 283 oil tankers.
So there you have it. For 15 months, the US didn't touch the oil trade that financed ISIS affairs, until Russia shamed
them into it. Then, the mightiest army in the world bombs 400 trucks, while Russia destroys 1000. Then Russia provides videos
of its airstrikes, while the US doesn't, and PBS is caught passing off Russian evidence as American.
idkak -> John Smith 25 Nov 2015 22:17
Currently 18 aircraft are patrolling the area on a daily basis, they must have misread the memo.... Downing a Turkish plane
over Turkish soil, or attacking a NATO aircraft on mission in Syria within the alliance that is currently bombing ISIS or other
terrorist variants... won't be favorable for Russia or their forces in Syria. Even without NATO, Turkey has a very large military
and the location we are talking about is about 2-5 minutes to bomb, and 1-2 minutes to intercept.. so the attack would be about
the same level of strategic stupidity as attacking Russia from the Ukraine.
André De Koning -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 22:16
How naive: downing a jet who fights al-Nusra. Of course Turkey has supported terrorist there for a long time and left the border
between Turkey and Syria porous, so the proxy war can be fought against Assad (just one man (?) always features in the multi-factorial
warfare, which is easy on the ears of simpletons). There were already plans in 1957 and more modern ones in the US to ruin Syria
and take the land and resources and use it for the oil pipelines from Saudi to Turkey (Assad did not sign off in 2009, so war
was bound to happen).
André De Koning 25 Nov 2015 22:11
Imagine a US fighter being shot down? From the beginning of the war Russia and Syria said there were not just peaceful demonstrators,
but people who were shooting and grew into ISIS and Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda. This did not fit the western propaganda and the Divide
and Ruin policy (title of Dan Glazebrook's recent book of articles) which is that Syria was a on the Ruin-map for a long time.
Turkey's Erdogan is intellectually an Islamist and together with Saudi they and the terrorists are fighting this proxy war the
US can hardly afford.
In 7 weeks Russia destroyed more of ISIS infrastructure and oil tankers than the US did in a year (the superpower has managed
to make ISIS increase seven-fold). The only objective is one man: Assad and the ruin of Syria to be 'rebuilt' (plundered) by western
investments and domination of the entire region of the Middle East. The rest is lies to prop up propaganda and doing as if they
bring democracy (like the West does in Saudi?! the biggest friend and weapons buyer. Just like Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, which
did not play ball, it will be destroyed by the West. It gets harder with Russia actually wishing to stop the proxy war: Syria
itself deciding what their future will be? No way as far as US and UK are concerned (and the weak EU following with their businessmen
contingent to reap the benefits). Absolutely disgusting that the people have to suffer it.
Of course Turkey did not need to down this jet: well planned and a clear provocation to start the propaganda war against
Russia which actually wants to stop this war before a transition without a pre-planned (US) outcome.
EightEyedSpy -> Eugenios 25 Nov 2015 21:59
Meanwhile, Turkey just gave the Russians a no-fly zone--against Turks.
Not true - unless Russia intends to breach the resolution unanimously passed by the UN Security Council authorising all member
nations to fight against ISIS on territory controlled by ISIS in Syria.
Pursuant to the Security Council resolution, which Russia voted for, all member nations have the legal right to use Syrian
airspace and traverse Syrian territory for the purpose of fighting ISIS in Syria.
If Russia attempts to impose a no-fly zone against Turkey in Syria, Russia will violate the Security Council resolution ...
btt1943 25 Nov 2015 21:59
Forget about whether Russian jet has infiltrated Turkey's airspace or not as claimed by one and denied by other, the bottom
line is Turkey has been wanting to play a big and decisive role in Syrian conflict and ISIS's rise. Ankara does not wish to see
Russian's growing influence and intervention in the messy region.
Jimmi Cbreeze -> Normin 25 Nov 2015 21:49
With Saudi and Turkish support for ISIS , just who have they bothered saving and sending out into Europe amongst their
name taking and slaughters ? Wahabists? How many cells set up now globally?
Jimmi Cbreeze EightEyedSpy 25 Nov 2015 21:17
The turkmen are illegally staging war. Russia is the only country legally in Syria. That's why CIA, Saudi, Turk, Israel
etc etc etc operate clandestine. But they all enjoy bombing hotheads. A pity so many of them think their brands of religion or
old stories from centuries ago of enemies have any bearing today. Or perhaps they just believe rich mens newspapers and media
too much. Maybe all their educations and futures were lost by gangsters that were funded and protected and given country ownership
for oil and now forces clean up their centuries long mess for newer deals.
And then you have the Murdochs and the Rothchilds and the arms industries.
Because where the people are'nt divided by cunning for profit, they are too lunatic and gangster minded to live in peace with
each other anyway.
The whole matter is a multi joint taskforce of opportunism. And wealth is going for broke stamping and taking as much corporate
ground as possible worldwide.
What chance is there of calling peace? Where and when are all these lunatics going to live in peace and constructively? How
would they with half the the globe shitstirring and funding trouble amongst them for profit and gain?
Turkey has attacked Russia on Syrian soil and Russia is the only country legally at arms in Syria. Makes you wonder that Turkey
does'nt like Turkmen or consider them a problem. That they provoke getting them wiped out of Syria. How could Assad or anyone
govern getting undermined from a dozen directions.
Who knows, the place is a mess. It's no use preaching peace inside the turmoil. It has to come from outside and above. But
it appears with this lot-what peace ever.
Bosula trandq 25 Nov 2015 21:07
Since you can't or don't bother to actually read the Guardian or other papers you probably missed that UN Resolution 2249 calls
not only for action against IS but also Al Nusra and other AQ associated groups in Syria. The Syrian Free Army is linked with
these groups, particularly Al Nusra.
Now you have learned something.
Eugenios 25 Nov 2015 21:04
It seems more likely than not that the Russians will make an effort to capture and try the moderate terrorists who shot the
Russian pilot parachuting. It is a war crime after all. The old Soviets would have dispensed with such niceties as trials, but
the RF is more legalistic. Nicely enough the moderate terrorists identified themselves on video, don't you know?
There may also be several legal cases brought against Erdogan and Turkey.
Meanwhile, Turkey just gave the Russians a no-fly zone--against Turks.
ozhellene -> trandq 25 Nov 2015 20:57
I thought Russia was INVITED by the Syrian Gov. to assist them in eradicating ALL rebel factions including a bunch of Turkmen
rebels funded by Erdogan. No others operating in Syria are legitimate. Any cowards shouting Allah uakbar and killing POWs should
be eradicated
luella zarf -> ArundelXVI 25 Nov 2015 20:54
US air strikes destroys 283 oil tankers used for smuggling to fund terror group. You were saying? I don't know why some people
around here just feel free to make things up.
Give us a break. The US hit ISIS oil tanks 6 full days after Russia released footage which showed its fighter jets targeting
200 oil trucks and a refinery. In 15 months of bombing ISIS, there were no American airstrikes on oil tanks until Russia came
along and showed them how it's done. Even PBS pointed out when reporting the attack "For the first time, the US is attacking oil
delivery trucks."
ozhellene 25 Nov 2015 20:35
will this be a "turkey shoot"? Big mistake Mr Erdogan! You just condemned you Turkmen buddies to be bombed by the Russian bears.
Turkey will never avoid the Kurdish finally taking back their rightful lands, stolen during the Ottoman rule.
Never forget that Kurds make up a lot of your population.....waiting for the right moment...
WalterCronkiteBot 25 Nov 2015 20:32
According to the BBC the Turkmen fight with Al Nusra.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34910389
UN Resolution 2249 calls not only for action against IS but also Al Nusra and other AQ associated groups.
They might not be explicitly AQ affiliated or Al Nusra itself but they share similar doctrines and fight together. Attacking
them may not be by the word of the resolution but its certainly in the spirit of it.
ianhassall -> ianhassall 25 Nov 2015 20:13
Whether I think the Turkman should be wiped out is generally irrelevent.
I just know in the past 24 hours I've seen Turkey shoot down a Russian plane over Syria to defend the Turkmen. I also saw the
Turkmen shooting at 2 Russian pilots why they attempted to parachute to safety, and one was killed. And I've seen the Turkmen
fire a Saudi Arabia-supplied TOW missile at a Russian rescue helicopter, destroying it and killing two pilots.
I also know Turkey has been "laundering" ISIS oil from Syria and Iraq to the tune of $2 million/day.
You reap what you sow.
nnedjo 25 Nov 2015 19:49
In the recent G20 summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was once more keen to underline that "terror has no religion and there
should be no our terrorist and your terrorist".
Yes, just when Erdogan says this, he thinks only on the Kurds, and wonder why the rest of the world considers the Kurds as
freedom fighters, and only Turkey considers them as [its] terrorists.
However, the main message of this article is correct. In order to achieve peace in the Middle East, first the rest of the world
must come to terms. The divisions in the world, inherited from the times of the Cold War were reflected also on the Islamic world,
and so deepened or even provoked a new sectarian Sunni-Shia divisions and conflicts. So although it's "a chronic disease", it
is fallen now into an acute phase in Syria and Iraq. And the urgency of the case requires that really has to come to some deal,
primarily between the US and Russia, that it could reach the end of the civil war in Syria, but also in Iraq, because it's all
inter-connected. Otherwise, this problem will become even more complicated and prolonged, with unforeseeable consequences.
Eugenios 25 Nov 2015 19:58
Well, a US Air Force has now also suggested that the Turkish shooting down of the Russian had to have been a pre-planned
provocation. Also US officials have said it cannot be confirmed that the Russian jet incurred into Turkish territory. And of course
there is the testimony of the Russian pilot. No doubt the Guardian will be covering these points, yes?
ianhassall -> EightEyedSpy 25 Nov 2015 19:47
Yes, I know. Why shouldn't Turkey defend terrorits and shoot down a Russian jet while its flying missions in Syria and not
incur any wrath.
Russians have been fighting Islamic extremists for a bit longer than the West, who have generally only ever funded or armed
them. I'd believe Putin 99 times out of a 100 before I'd believe Obama once.
illbthr22 -> EightEyedSpy 25 Nov 2015 19:21
What ethnic cleansing??? Assad has a multi sect and multi ethnic government. Meanwhile western and Turkish backed jihadist
have openly said they will massacre every last Kurd,Christian,Alawi and Druze in the country.
Andrew Nichols -> Jeremn 25 Nov 2015 19:14
We don't have a clear, clear understanding of everything that happened today, okay? I've said that and I can keep saying it
all day. We're still trying to determine what happened. It's easy to rush to judgments and to make proclamations and declarations
after an incident like this.
Which is exactly what the US did - by supporting Turkeys side of the story. Dont you wish the journalist would point this out?
Cecile_Trib -> Spiffey 25 Nov 2015 19:12
Turkmen terrorists backed by Turkey (now from the air) are there not to fight with Assad but to wipe out Kurds in this region
- Edorgan's sweet dream to get the political weight back.
Amazing how Russia attacking the ISIS oil operation can suddenly embarrass the Yanks into doing the obvious. Why didn't they
do it before? If ISIS and their FSA buddies loses they can't get rid of Assad for Bibi, simples. The good old FSA, chanting Jihad
and carrying white on black Al Qaeda flags. We have an interesting idea of what "moderate" is. Then again Blair was a moderate
and he.... ummm....errrr....oops!
luella zarf -> TheOutsider79 25 Nov 2015 18:38
are France the only honest brokers in all of this, the only ones actually doing what they say they are doing - targeting
ISIS
No, of course not. It's all spin. France, which was Syria's colonial master, is hoping to regain some of its former influence.
ISIS is just a pretext, and they really have no incentive of destroying their only justification for being there in the first
place.
When France launched its first airstrikes in Sep, Reuters wrote: "Paris has become alarmed by the possibility of France being
sidelined in negotiations to reach a political solution in Syria. A French diplomatic source said Paris needed to be one of the
"hitters" in Syria - those taking direct military action - to legitimately take part in any negotiations for a political solution
to the conflict."
This is why they are participating - to get a seat at the table when the great powers break up Syria and hand out land rights
for pipelines to big oil.
SallyWa -> HHeLiBe 25 Nov 2015 18:46
Turkey has no interest in the peaceful settlement to the conflict in Syria that world powers are negotiating. As it gets desperate,
Turkey will attempt to bring focus back on the Assad regime and reverse the losses it has made both in Syria and geopolitically.
SallyWa -> FelixFeline 25 Nov 2015 18:45
Really? I guess I'll have to take your word for that.
Really. That's sort of your issue, not mine.
Do you have any links to support your claims about these lost ISIS territories?
Although there has been a war of words between Greece and Turkey, with Turkey charging the Greeks with invading its air space,
Turkey has yet to fire on a Greek plane. The turkmen are considered "moderates, and the US arm them to fight the Assad government.
Shooting down the Russian plane was Turkey's way of flexing its muscles. The murder of the pilot in the parashoot was a cowardly
act. These are the people the US are backing. They can be added to Obama's list of most favored and join the ranks of the Saudis
who behead and crucify protesters, one upmanship over ISIS gruesome beheadings, and of course there is alSiSi, who executes
all opposition. Petroshenko, wants to freeze the people of Crimea, and has over 6500 Ukrainian deaths notched on his belt since
Nuland and Obama gave him the keys to Kiev.
Turkey feels feisty right now, but he obviously isn't aware of the talk coming from Washington about dividing up Syria among
four leaders like they did to Berlin.
Turkey will have no part to play, and the US really wants to keep Russia out of the picture. They blame Assad for ISIS but
the vacuum left by the US and the coalition left in Iraq is what gave birth to ISIS. Easy to depose governments, and then let
chaos reign. Since Obama keeps bringing up the right of a sovereign nation to protect its borders, he should realize that the
Syrian government never invited the US onto its soil. The Turkmen through their actions have shown they are terrorists, and Russia
will treat them accordingly.
HHeLiBe 25 Nov 2015 18:32
Erdogan is playing both NATO and Russia for fools. Trying to create a wedge and sabotage the restoration of stability in
Syria.
Branko Dodig 25 Nov 2015 18:26
The Russian plane was shot over Syrian airspace. Even if it had strayed over Turkish airspace, it was not shot down there.
Basically, an act of revenge for bombing their "rebel" buddies.
SallyWa -> FelixFeline 25 Nov 2015 18:24
It is "Turkey screwed up and overreacted". Not confusing at all.
SallyWa -> FelixFeline 25 Nov 2015 18:23
Sorry, but I'm not Russian and also where have you been - Russia has been fighting ISIS in Syria better than US/coalition,
though US/coalition did it like for a whole year.The result is that ISIS lost territories which it gained under US's "watch".
centerline 25 Nov 2015 18:12
Since the G20 meeting, Russia has photographed and destroyed the Turkish/ISIS oil convoys.
In the day or so since Turkey shot down the Russian plane in defence of al Qaeda, Russia has for the first time attacked a
Turkish logistics convoy to ISIS and al Qaeda right at the main border crossing to Allepo. A number of trucks destroyed and 7
killed in that operation. turkey will pay dearly in the days to come, without Russia ever having to move into Turkish territory.
Any Turks running errands for AQ and ISIS within Syria will now be an endangered species. Or more to the point they will simply
be eradicated like the vermin they are.
luella zarf -> TonyBlunt 25 Nov 2015 18:10
What a joke.
In one year of bombing, August 2014-July 2015, the coalition conducted 44,000 airstrikes in Syria-Iraq and killed 15,000 ISIS
fighters, which comes at 3 sorties per terrorist!
It is all a giant make-believe. They are only using ISIS as a pretext to occupy and breakup Syria. And Western populations
swallow all these lies without blinking and feel victimized by refugees.
pfox33 25 Nov 2015 17:49
The US and Israel were totally freaking when Russia first considered selling Iran S-300 systems, even though they're defensive.
It would have taken the feasibility of bombing Iran's nuclear infrastructure to an unknown place. Russia sold these systems to
select customers, like China. The S-400 is not for sale. Any search of Youtube will explain why.
When the S-400 is set up around Latakia they will effectively own the surrounding skies for 400 miles in every direction. That
extends well into Turkey.
Now, I'd bet that Putin has no plans to exacerbate the current situation by shooting down any Turkish jets out of revenge
for yesterday's incident. But it will be unsettling for Turkish flyboys and their bosses to know that a good chunk of their a
airspace is totally vulnerable and they fly there only because Russia lets them.
So maybe the Turks pissed in the pickles. This little problem is keeping the Nato nabobs up at night. They haven't said a fucking
word.
Geraldine Baxter -> SallyWa 25 Nov 2015 17:47
it's astonishing how many of the Putin hating NATObots from the Ukrainian-themed CIF threads turn out to be ISIS supporters.
indeed, with the "stench" of US grand mufti all over them.. How far do you think Obama will bow on his next visit to Saudi.
Liesandstats -> luella zarf 25 Nov 2015 17:47
Yup the FT estimated before the Russians got involved that ISIS were producing between 30,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil
a day. You would need over 2000 full size road tankers just to move one days output. Now its fair to assume after filling up it
takes more than a day before it gets back to the pump. Surprisingly the US has neither noticed all these tankers and even more
surprisingly the oil tanks and installations.
jonsid 25 Nov 2015 17:33
An article about Syria is now infested with Banderites. They need to worry more about their own long-time disaster of a country
instead of stalking every article mentioning Russia.
Anette Mor 25 Nov 2015 17:29
Russians spent all this time signing the rules of engagement and recognition of each other air crafts over Syria with the US,
only to be shot by Turkey. Does NATO even exist as a unit other than in the headquarter offices? They constantly refer to the
terms which could allegedly force then to support each other in case of external threat, while clearly they will fuck each other
on technicalities for years before doing anything practically viable. Russia waste their time talking to NATO, instead had to
bribe Turkey separately into a workable local deal. I am sure Turkey got just the same conclusion after wasting time in NATO talks.
Corruption and complicity eaten away common sense in western politician and military heads. They only think how weak or strong
they would look imitating one or another decision.
aretheymyfeet -> psygone 25 Nov 2015 17:22
Hilarious, checkmate Putin? The only reason the Turks took this drastic action is because the Western alliance has lost the
initiative in Syria and they are desperately trying to goad Russia into overreacting. But, as we have seen time and again from
the Russians (Lavrov is an incredibly impressive Statesman) that they are cool headed, and restrained.
The whole regime change plan is hanging in the balance and every day Russia solidifies Assad's position. If this continues
for even another month it will be virtually impossible for the Western alliance to demand the departure of Assad.
Their bargaining position is diminishing by the day and it is great to watch. Also good to read that the Russians have
been pounding the shi*e out of those Turkmen areas. Expect those silly buggers to be slaughtered whilst Erdogan and the Turks
watch on helplessly. If they even try anything inside the Syrian border now the Russians will annihilate them. I'd say if
anything, the Turks have strengthened the Russians providing them with the perfect excuse to close the Syrian air space to "unfriendly"
forces. Check.
thatshowitgoes 25 Nov 2015 16:56
Erdogan's reaction to Syria shooting down a Turkish jet in 2012. "Erdogan criticized Syria harshly on Tuesday for shooting
down the Turkish fighter jet, saying: "Even if the plane was in their airspace for a few seconds, that is no excuse to attack."
"It was clear that this plane was not an aggressive plane. Still it was shot down," the corrupt ISIS supporting scumbag said"
SallyWa -> psygone 25 Nov 2015 16:56
means he's politically impotent, militarily boxed in a corner and incompetent for self-inflicting
You know you just described Obama and all his policies in a nutshell.
Bob Nassh -> keepithuman 25 Nov 2015 16:54
I believe there's conditions within the NATO treaty that prevent them from defending another member nation providing the conflict
was instigated by war crimes committed by the member nation.
The US doesn't bomb ISIS, only pretends it does. Actually nobody bombs ISIS there except Russia.
Only between August 2014 and July 2015 the coalition aircraft have flown nearly 44,000 sorties, according to USNews, and Airwars
said the strikes have killed more than 15,000 Islamic State militants during this period.
So they needed 3 sorties per terrorist! I have no idea how they manage to be this ineffective unless a) they are world's worst
airforce b) it's all make-believe. My money is on option b).
Yury Kobyzev -> Valois1588 25 Nov 2015 16:41
Now fact - turkey government is on ISIS side. Its simplifies situation. Russia now quite free to clean the Turkey border from
interface with ISIS. It's half a job in fight.
I don't see why Russia can be damaged by so stupid current west policy. I think that clever part of west will change policy
towards Russia in near future and will find there friends as it was during ww2. You can repeat mantra Pu... tin as I use Ooom
... but is he of your level?
Chummy15 25 Nov 2015 16:30
Turkey has made it pretty clear where its primary loyalties lie, with ISIS and the other anti-Assad elements. It was a foolish
move shooting down the Russian plane which clearly was no threat to the security of Turkey whether or not it had violated Turkish
airspace, something that happen around the world regularly. It adds a further dimension to an already complicated war
The Nov. 24 downing of a Russian
fighter jet that violated Turkey's border with Syria by the Turkish military was planned,
according to a senior figure from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
"It is seen that the downing of the Russian
jet was decided and planned earlier, and it was just implemented yesterday," said İdris Baluken,
the opposition party's deputy chair, on Nov. 25.
"What we saw yesterday is a scene from a planned policy," he said.
The AKP [Justice and Development Party] has shown in its insistent practices that it is a part of
the war in Syria," he said.
"The real matter about the downing of the jet is that the AKP feels the need to intervene in
operations against some gangs such as Ahrar al-Sham and al-Nusra" he said, claiming that the AKP
was not actually concerned about Syria's Turkmens.
The government and President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
have said recent Russian operations in
Syria were not targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but Turkmens in the
north of the country.
"The AKP did not raise its voice when Turkmens were being killed in Mosul and Telafar in 2014,"
Baluken said, referring to 2014 ISIL attacks targeting Iraq's heavily-populated Turkmen areas.
Baluken was speaking at a press conference in parliament before the announcing of the new
government program and said the Turkish people had already seen the content of the program in the
government's recent moves.
Baluken also stated eight civilians were killed in the town of Nusaybin, which entered its 13th
day under curfew. The town is located in the southeastern province of Mardin
"... The fate of the Russian pilots in the downed jet will also play a key role here. If it is true that one of the pilots was killed while parachuting down by Turkmen fighters, as Moscow claims, there will be a clamoring for merciless revenge by the Russian public against this group. ..."
"... we had reports of members of Turkey's secret service, the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), scurrying to the region desperately trying to find the pilots after the SU-24 was downed. It is questionable, therefore, whether this move by Turkey, legal as it may be, will have bolstered the position of the Turkmens. The immediate impression one gets is that it will make it worse. ..."
"... It is not clear whether Moscow will use the economic card against Turkey, which has a great dependence on Russian natural gas, and the Russian market, not to mention the millions of Russian tourists that stream into Turkey every year. ..."
"... The economic card cuts both ways of course. Russia needs to sell its gas to earn money. But Russian preparedness to sacrifice, once nationalist sentiments are aroused in that country, is a historic fact. ..."
"... it is clear why President Recep Tayyip Erdo an is saying that Turkey has no interests in escalating the crisis with Russia. He has undoubtedly been made aware that poking the "Russian Bear" comes at a cost. ..."
There is no doubt that the happiest person because of this unprecedented crisis between Turkey
and Russia is Syria's Bashar al-Assad. He must have been delighted at the extremely angry remarks
by President Putin aimed at Turkey, and his dire warning that the downing of their jet will have
serious consequences for Turkish-Russian ties.
It is also clear that Russia will not be deterred by this affair in either its support for Assad
or its operations north of Latakia where it is hitting groups supported by Turkey, including
Turkmens. Russia will also take added precautions to bolster its air defense systems in the
region, and will back its operations there with support from its military assets in the eastern
Mediterranean.
As long as it does not violate Turkish airspace again, there is little, if anything, Turkey can
do to ensure that Russia does not bomb the Turkmens with added intensity and ferocity. Turkey can
send surface air missiles to the Turkmens, of course, but it is doubtful its NATO allies will
allow this, given the risk of these weapons falling into the wrong hands.
The simple fact is that no one in the West is clear about whom these Turkmens really are, and
whether they are radical Sunni jihadists or "moderate Islamists." Turkey has to help clarify this
point if it wants sympathy in the West for the Turkmens.
The fate of the Russian pilots in the downed jet will also play a key role here. If it is
true that one of the pilots was killed while parachuting down by Turkmen fighters, as Moscow
claims, there will be a clamoring for merciless revenge by the Russian public against this group.
It was not for nothing that we had reports of members of Turkey's secret service, the
National Intelligence Organization (MIT), scurrying to the region desperately trying to find the
pilots after the SU-24 was downed. It is questionable, therefore, whether this move by Turkey,
legal as it may be, will have bolstered the position of the Turkmens. The immediate impression
one gets is that it will make it worse.
Then there is the economic dimension, which is being widely covered by the media and need not be
repeated here. It is not clear whether Moscow will use the economic card against Turkey,
which has a great dependence on Russian natural gas, and the Russian market, not to mention the
millions of Russian tourists that stream into Turkey every year.
The economic card cuts both ways of course. Russia needs to sell its gas to earn money. But
Russian preparedness to sacrifice, once nationalist sentiments are aroused in that country, is a
historic fact.
Looking at all of this, it is clear why President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is saying that Turkey
has no interests in escalating the crisis with Russia. He has undoubtedly been made aware that
poking the "Russian Bear" comes at a cost.
"... Russia may consider cancelling some important joint projects with Turkey after the downing of the Russian jet by Turkish F-16s near the Syrian border on Nov. 24, raising questions about the future of the countries' intimate economic and trade relations. ..."
"... Turkish companies could lose Russian market share due to the jet fighter incident, Medvedev said in a statement published on the government website. He suggested it may lead to the barring of Turkish companies from the Russian market. ..."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Nov. 25 that Russia may consider cancelling some important
joint projects with Turkey after the downing of the Russian jet by Turkish F-16s near the Syrian
border on Nov. 24, raising questions about the future of the countries' intimate economic and trade
relations.
Turkish companies could lose Russian market share due to the jet fighter incident, Medvedev said
in a statement published on the government website. He suggested it may lead to the barring of Turkish
companies from the Russian market.
"The direct consequences are likely to be the renunciation of a number of important joint projects
and Turkish companies losing their position on the Russian market," Medvedev said.
The joint projects that immediately come to mind are a number of existing and planned energy projects
between Russia and Turkey.
Turkey commissioned Russia's state-owned Rosatom in 2013 to build four 1,200-megawatt reactors
in a project worth $20 billion.
Russia and Turkey are also working on the Turkish Stream pipeline project, an alternative to Russia's
South Stream pipeline, which was to transport gas to Europe without crossing Ukraine. The South Stream
plan was dropped last year due to objections from the European Commission.
The talks over the pipeline have been postponed due to Turkey's election agenda and disagreements
over a gas price discount, as officials from the both countries had earlier mentioned.
"It is quite difficult to start the talks again. If a reconciliatory step is not taken, Russia
will most likely not continue this project. Even Russia could even scrap this project and start an
alternative project, like, for example, a Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline project," said a sector representative,
anonymously quoted by daily Hürriyet on Nov. 25.
... ... ...
Turkish-Russian economic and trade ties in figures
ENERGY: Turkey meets around 55 percent of its gas demand from Russia. Turkey is the second biggest
consumer of Russian gas after Germany
CONSTRUCTION: Turkish companies undertook a total of 47 projects worth around $4 billion in Russia
in 2014
RETAIL: Turkish retailers have over 700 stores in Russia
HOUSING: Russian citizens are the third largest foreign buyers of property in Turkey, with 1,750
units over this year
TOURISM: Russia is the second largest tourism provider for Turkey, with around 3.3 million Russian
tourists visiting the country over this year
TRADE: Turkey's exports to Russia in 2014: $5.9 billion, with around 20 percent of Turkey's food
exports and 15 percent of its textile exports going to Russia
An ultra-nationalist group of protestors targeted the Turkish Embassy in Moscow on Nov. 25
following demonstrations at Turkey's Nov. 24 downing of a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian
border.
Around 500 protestors of the Russian political party LDPR carrying Russian, Syrian and party
flags first shouted slogans against Turkey in front of the Turkish embassy in the afternoon
before pelting the building with stones.
Windows on the first two floors of the four-story building were completely broken, according to
diplomats at the embassy.
Diplomats said no one was injured in the attack, adding that the Russian police failed to stop
the attack.
Protesters also pelted the embassy's external wall with tomatoes and eggs.
The ultra-nationalist protestors also chanted "We will come again tomorrow" after the attack.
"... President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made no apology, saying his nation had simply been defending its own security and the "rights of our brothers in Syria." He made clear Turkish policy would not change. ..."
"... Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as a planned act and said it would affect efforts towards a political solution in Syria. Moscow would "seriously reconsider" its relations with Ankara, he said. ..."
"... But the Russian response was carefully calibrated, indicating Moscow did not want to jeopardize its main objective in the region: to rally international support for its view on how the conflict in Syria should be resolved. ..."
"... "We have no intention of fighting a war with Turkey," Lavrov said. ..."
Russia sent an advanced missile system to Syria Wednesday to protect its jets operating there and
pledged its air force would keep flying missions near Turkish airspace, sounding a defiant note after
Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet.
Underscoring the message, Russian forces launched a heavy
bombardment against insurgent-held areas in Latakia Wednesday, near where the jet was downed, rebels
and a monitoring group said.
The United States and Europe both urged calm and continued dialogue in telephone conversations
with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a sign of international concern at the prospect of any
escalation between the former Cold War enemies.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made no apology, saying his nation had simply been defending
its own security and the "rights of our brothers in Syria." He made clear Turkish policy would not
change.
Russian officials expressed fury over Turkey's action and spoke of retaliatory measures that were
likely to include curbing travel by Russian tourists to Turkish resorts and some restrictions on
trade.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as a planned act and said it would affect
efforts towards a political solution in Syria. Moscow would "seriously reconsider" its relations
with Ankara, he said.
Jets believed to be Russian also hit a depot for trucks waiting to go through a major rebel-controlled
border crossing with Turkey, Bab al-Salam, the head of the crossing said.
Syrian jets have struck the area before, but if confirmed to have been carried out by Russia,
it would be one of Moscow's closest airstrikes to Turkish soil, targeting a humanitarian corridor
into rebel-held Syria and a lifeline for ordinary Syrians crossing to Turkey.
But the Russian response was carefully calibrated, indicating Moscow did not want to jeopardize
its main objective in the region: to rally international support for its view on how the conflict
in Syria should be resolved.
"We have no intention of fighting a war with Turkey," Lavrov said.
Erdogan also said that Ankara had no intention of escalating tensions with Russia.
In Paris, President Francois Hollande expressed concern over the war of words raging between Ankara
and Moscow.
"We must all work to make sure that the situation [between Russia and Turkey] de-escalates," Hollande
told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merkel said in response she would act "swiftly" to see how Germany could take up "additional responsibilities"
to assist in the fight against terror.
"... Russia will choose from a menu of asymmetric responses in retaliation against Turkey, including informal economic sanctions and providing military aid to Turkey's enemies, including the Kurds. ..."
In Moscow at least, the event is being seen as something larger than an attack on an errant
jet.
... ... ...
The Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement Wednesday that Russian fighter jets will
now escort the bombers, and Moscow will move into Syria powerful new ground-to-air missiles that
can reach across the country and far into Turkey from the Russian air base in the province of
Latakia on Syria's Mediterranean coast.
Additionally, analysts say, Russia will choose from a menu of asymmetric responses in
retaliation against Turkey, including informal economic sanctions and providing military aid to
Turkey's enemies, including the Kurds.
... ... ...
Russian attitudes toward Turkey, which were reasonably friendly a year ago, have turned cold
with alarming speed. Most Russian tour operators stopped selling travel packages to Turkey on
Wednesday. Protesters in Moscow pelted the Turkish Embassy with eggs and rocks, shattering
windows. Russian lawmakers introduced a bill that would criminalize denying that the mass
killings of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire was a "genocide." The issue remains highly
sensitive: Turkey acknowledges that atrocities occurred but has long denied that what took place
constituted a genocide.
... ... ...
Russia will seek retribution against Turkey but wants to avoid antagonizing the West, Baunov
said. "If this becomes a fight between Russia and the West, then that goes against the goals of
the intervention in the first place: to escape international isolation connected to sanctions,"
he said.
"... The nightmare of the birth of Kurdistan hangs over Turkey like a sword of Damocles for many decades. The emergence after the collapse of Saddam Hussein of de facto independent Iraqi Kurdistan has made the situation especially dangerous for Turkey, and the sudden appearance of ISIS aggressively fighting the Kurds, the ISIS army led by former Saddam generals, of course, made Turks more than happy. Turkish troops and the air force strike the Kurdish militias in Syria directly. ..."
"... In a sense, our policy today is paying the price for refusing to be consistent in solving geopolitical issues. We entered the game in Syria, with the outstanding issue of Crimea-Novorossia, as a result, today we have an exacerbation in Donetsk, energy and transport blockade of Crimea, a front against ISIS and a looming front against Turkey, which is a NATO member. ..."
"... So, today we are faced with the threat of war on several fronts, in which Turkey has assumed the role of lead instigator and aggressor who must lay siege to Russia. ..."
"... So the situation is really extreme. In a sense, we are cornered. ..."
"... If Russia wants to look good in this conflict it would have to force Turkey to publicly apologize for which it needs a set of effective sanctions and threats - from supporting Kurdistan to breaking the economic and tourist relations, and most importantly - be prepared for fierce stand-off of defense systems at the Syrian border. Then Russia can forget about supplying our group through the Bosphorus. In conclusion, we got another major front in addition to the already existing. ..."
"... And without the support of Washington Turkeys capabilities will shrink to the scale of the state, the power of which is simply not comparable with Russia. We must play not against the player, but against the game technicians. ..."
...Historically, Turkey owns "the keys of our house," as the Straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles
were called in the XIX century by the first Russian geopoliticians. Only with great difficulty in
the XVII-XIX centuries Russia has managed to squeeze Turkey from Northern Black Sea coast, Novorossia
and Crimea.
By an amazing coincidence the provocation occurred on the birthday of Alexander Suvorov. However,
all attempts of the Russian Empire to gain control over the straits and over the ancient Byzantine
capital Constantinople met with united resistance of the European powers led by Britain, supporting
Turkey. The latest attempt to control the straits by Russia was carried out by Stalin, a response
to which was the withdrawal of Turkey under the NATO umbrella.
By controlling the straits Turkey controls most of the supply of our military group in Syria.
Montreux Convention makes the peacetime regime of the straits free for all the Black Sea countries,
but in time of war Turkey gets the legal right to block the straits to the enemies and open them
to the allies.
Turkey allies are NATO countries, and the enemy, judging by the downed aircraft, may be Russia.
That is, a provocation with the Su-24 puts supply of our troops in Syria under jeopardy. The only
other routs left - much more uncomfortable through Iran and potentially problematic through Iraq,
where the United States have a big influence.
... Neo-islamist and neo-ottoman Erdogan carries out a very aggressive policy, not appealing to
either Washington or Berlin or Brussels, in fact, seeking to restore the Ottoman Empire.
... Erdogan was the most fanatical enemy of Assad, as he hoped that Islamized Sunni Syria would
become a vassal of Turkey, and perhaps even return inside its borders. Turkey was one of the midwives
at the birth of ISIS - it is extremely interested in the local oil, and in the ISIS fight with the
Iraqi and Syrian Kurds.
The nightmare of the birth of Kurdistan hangs over Turkey like a sword of Damocles for many
decades. The emergence after the collapse of Saddam Hussein of de facto independent Iraqi Kurdistan
has made the situation especially dangerous for Turkey, and the sudden appearance of ISIS aggressively
fighting the Kurds, the ISIS army led by former Saddam generals, of course, made Turks more than
happy. Turkish troops and the air force strike the Kurdish militias in Syria directly.
Russian operation in Syria mixed all the cards for Erdogan.
First, it ensures the political future of Assad, or at least a successor agreed with Assad.
Restored Syria will become Alawite-Christian-Shia-Sunni and certainly anti-Turkish. Oil extraction
has been pulled out from under his nose, and Erdogan began resembling a furious Sherkhan ...
Secondly, Russia, and now France, made it their ultimate goal the complete eradication of
ISIS, which automatically means strengthening the Kurds and the reduction of the Turkish influence
in the region.
Moreover, Russia is doing this in tandem with Iran, which is de facto a key ally of Russia
in the Middle East, an alliance of the type, where both sides are mutually reinforcing, both working
for the common cause, and both sides benefit from the union.
And Iran is Turkey's main rival in the struggle for regional dominance. And it also developed
historically. Byzantium (the place of which is geographically occupied by Turkey) against the
Iranian Sassanids, then Ottomans against Safavids and Qajar, and today Sunni Erdogan against the
Shiite ayatollahs. That is, the strengthening of Iran by Russia would be tantamount to the collapse
of the entire imperial policy of Turkey.
Naturally, the Turkish government is furious and wants to somehow kick Russia out of Syria. Turkey
has repeatedly made threatening statements and gestures regarding alleged violations of Turkish borders
by our aviation operating against Syrian terrorists.
No other country, including even the United States, made so many attacks against Russian foreign
policy. Some experts do not rule out even the involvement of Turkish and Qatari security services
in the tragedy with the Russian airplane in Sinai, though officially this hypothesis has never been
voiced.
... ... ...
And here comes the next move - the downing of the Russian plane targeting the terrorists, under
the pretext of its entry into the Turkish airspace. According to the Turkish version, the Russian
Su-24 was shot down after warnings by the Turkish F-16s. According to our Ministry of Defense, the
plane never left Syrian airspace.
There is no reason to believe that the Russian side is just being defensive and the Turkish is
speaking the truth. The tactical goal of the Turks is with this plane crash to indicate an actual
"no-fly zone" in northern Syria, which would save the militants from ultimate annihilation, which
in Latakia, (where our plane was shot down) was quite close.
This idea of a no-fly zone was supported by the US hawks, who consider Russia an enemy number
one. The last straw, apparently, was the demonstrative destruction by our air-space forces of oil
convoys coming from ISIS territory to Turkey.
Most of all the incident with the plane crash is reminiscent of a classic provocation. The Turkish
side showed a diagram in which the Russian bomber is flying over microscopic wedge of the Turkish
territory deep into Syria. Turkish geographic wedge into Syria - is the so-called area of Alexandretta,
which Turkey annexed from France, which controlled Syria after World War I.
In 1938, parliament of this region declared the area an independent republic of Hatay - it was
the last foreign policy operation of Kemal Ataturk before his death. In 1939, Turkey annexed Hatay.
This is how the Turkish wedge into the Syrian territory was formed, covered with a multitude of
small protrusions. That a Russian plane could fly over one of them is, in principle, not impossible,
as the border is very complex and elusive. But it only means that this time it was expected to be
knocked down.
The triumphant demonstration of the body of our pilot on Turkish TV and generally surprisingly
high preparedness by Turkish media to broadcast the incident in real time, speaks for it being a
direct provocation against Russia.
... ... ...
Escalation of the conflict could also be in Turkey's interest, as this will allow it to cut the
sea communications of our group in Syria, and perhaps even try to block it with ground forces,
which Turkey has much more of in the region (although I would not overestimate the fighting capacity
of the Turkish army) .
Turkey can carry out the aggressive actions under the NATO umbrella, because the alliance will
likely have to intervene if the Turks employ article 5 of the "North Atlantic Treaty". The Western
countries are seriously annoyed by Erdogan, but it is hardly enough to refuse to perform the obligations
of the NATO treaty.
Russia's military options to influence Turkey are limited by the weakness of our Black Sea fleet,
and most importantly - by the threat of escalating to a global conflict, and, moreover, by extremely
disadvantageous configuration of the possible theater of the conflict, as our air-space forces are
operating in the Turkish rear and their land communications and air bridge options depend on the
politically unstable Iraq, just recently occupied by the US.
That is, before our forces in Syria looms the very threat of severing communications, which was
seen from the outset as serious, in contrast to the mythical "militant attacks."
In a sense, our policy today is paying the price for refusing to be consistent in solving
geopolitical issues. We entered the game in Syria, with the outstanding issue of Crimea-Novorossia,
as a result, today we have an exacerbation in Donetsk, energy and transport blockade of Crimea, a
front against ISIS and a looming front against Turkey, which is a NATO member.
So, today we are faced with the threat of war on several fronts, in which Turkey has assumed
the role of lead instigator and aggressor who must "lay siege" to Russia. This role for Turkey
is historically organic. Here we can recall the war of 1787-1891, which was directly provoked by
the Western powers in response to the strengthening of Russia and its occupation of Crimea.
No sooner had Mother Catherine rode to Crimea with foreign delegations, and Potemkin showed his
villages, as Turkey declared war on Russia, which made Suvorov and Ushakov famous. Moreover, for
Russia it was a war on two fronts - simultaneously Sweden declared war on Russia, and its attack
was repelled by the Baltic fleet with almost no involvement of ground forces.
So Russia finally managed, and with the Treaty of Jassy Turkey recognized Crimea Russian, and
the Russian border has been pushed beyond the Dniester. But do not forget that Russia was then supported
by Austria, but today there are not many of those who wish to go against Turkey in the European Union.
So the situation is really extreme. In a sense, we are cornered. If Russia flushes the
incident, it would mean a public apology from our side, then all the Western media publications have
already prepared the headlines that the cocky Russia has been put in its place by Turkey, reminding
who is who.
If Russia wants to look good in this conflict it would have to force Turkey to publicly apologize
for which it needs a set of effective sanctions and threats - from supporting Kurdistan to breaking
the economic and tourist relations, and most importantly - be prepared for fierce stand-off of defense
systems at the Syrian border. Then Russia can forget about supplying our group through the Bosphorus.
In conclusion, we got another major front in addition to the already existing.
The most promising, in my opinion, would be to treat the situation as a systemic problem.
That is, Turkish issue should be solved not in Syria but in Ukraine and Novorossia, because Turkey
is just a piece of the puzzle in a global confrontation and its aggression will immediately lose
its meaning for Washington, if we win at the front nearest to us.
And without the support of Washington Turkey's capabilities will shrink to the scale of the
state, the power of which is simply not comparable with Russia. We must play not against the player,
but against the game technicians.
Let's cut to the chase. The notion that Turkey's downing of a Russian Su-24 by a made in USA
F-16 was carried out without either a green light or at least pre-arranged "support" from Washington
invites suspension of disbelief.
Turkey is a mere vassal state, the eastern arm of NATO, which is the European arm of the Pentagon.
The Pentagon already issued a denial - which, considering their spectacular record of strategic failures
cannot be taken at face value. Plausibly, this might have been a power play by the neocon generals
who run the Pentagon, allied with the neocon-infested Obama administration.
The privileged scenario
though is of a vassal Turkey led by Sultan Erdogan risking a suicide mission out of its own, current,
desperation.
Here's Erdogan's warped reasoning in a nutshell. The Paris tragedy was a huge setback. France
started discussing close military collaboration not within NATO, but with Russia. Washington's unstated
aim was always to get NATO inside Syria. By having Turkey/NATO - clumsily, inside Syrian territory
- attacking Russia, and provoking a harsh Russian response, Erdogan thought he could seduce NATO
into Syria, under the pretext (Article 5) of defending Turkey.
As Bay-of-Pigs dangerous as this may be, it has nothing to do with WWIII - as apocalyptic purveyors
are braying. It revolves around whether a state which supports/finances/weaponizes the Salafi-jihadi
nebulae is allowed to destroy the Russian jets that are turning its profitable assets into ashes.
President Putin nailed it; it was "a shot in the back". Because all evidence is pointing
towards an ambush: the F-16s might have been actually waiting for the Su-24s. With Turkish TV
cameras available for maximum global impact.
Turkey has been accused of hypocrisy over the downing of a Russian warplane on the Syrian border,
after it emerged that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself said "a short-term border violation
can never be a pretext for an attack".
The Russian jet which came down on Tuesday morning entered a small sliver of Turkish airspace
for 17 seconds, according to the Turkish military's own data, while the Russian defence ministry
says the Su-24 bomber was in Syria at all times.
The incident has echoes of a reverse situation in 2012, when the Syrian regime shot down a Turkish
F-4 Phantom which, it said, entered its airspace off the country's north-east coast.
Then, Turkey spoke of its "rage" at the decision to shoot down the jet, which was on a training
flight testing its own country's radar systems.
"A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", Mr Erdogan said at the time,
threatening in response that "every military element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border… will
be assessed as a military threat and treated as a military target".
"... "I don't think the Turkish government would have undertaken such an action against a military superpower like Russia without the consent of the US. It's simply ridiculous to suggest the Turkish military would have acted alone," ..."
"... "So they were carrying out this attack certainly with the backing of the US," ..."
"... "Until 2011, Turkey had a policy in the Middle East which was considered quite diplomatic and progressive; it had a good-neighborly policy," ..."
"... "In the future you're going to see Turkey emerge as a new maritime power." ..."
"... "... You have a Turkish speaking population in Central Asia and in the North Caucasus region. So Turkey has a lot of levers to pull with Russia, and what we're seeing with these attacks is an attempt to raise the tension with Russia," ..."
"... "Of course Russia is destroying the Islamic State, and Turkey needs to keep the IS going in Syria. They have been openly backing it, and that had been openly admitted by the western press," ..."
"... "This is much less about violating Turkish airspace and much more about the fact that both Russia and Turkey are backing different sides in the conflict in Syria. And we effectively have a proxy war. And these types of clashes and conflicts were completely predictable and inevitable", ..."
"... "advances US interests in this particular conflict, so they have no problem with those missiles being used in that capacity and in that direction." ..."
"... "extending and perpetuating the crisis." ..."
"... "The US has no particular problem in allowing its missiles to be used by rebel forces that it considers friendly," ..."
"... "It explains why there has been relative silence with respect to the use of its own missiles in this particular context." ..."
"... "Well, I think right now it's avoiding escalation and cooler heads hopefully will prevail so that Turkey doesn't try to invoke Article 5 under the NATO treaty [Collective Defence]," ..."
"... "But again cooler heads prevailed and they just decided to invoke Article 4 which was to have a consultation. Hopefully that will happen again," ..."
"... "What happened was that the Russian jet got too close to some very serious interests of Turkey, and that is why they probably took action," ..."
"... "It is probably one of the routes through which they send their forces in through Turkey into Syria to fight on behalf of the jihadist groups," ..."
"... "since it was aiming at possibly Al-Nusra or one of the other jihadist groups that was on the ground." ..."
"... "Turkey has tremendous relations and exchanges with Russia from energy to a lot of trade," ..."
"... "It is only right that the two sides get together and talk this thing out. But I don't see NATO getting engaged in this except to have consultations, because the last thing the European countries want - including the US – is an armed conflict with Russia," ..."
NATO member state Turkey seems strangely committed to keeping Islamic State going strong in Syria,
thus willing to take dangerous risks in confronting Russia in the region. Hopefully cooler heads
will prevail, a group of experts told RT.
"I don't think the Turkish government would have undertaken such an action against
a military superpower like Russia without the consent of the US. It's simply ridiculous to suggest
the Turkish military would have acted alone,"O'Colmain told RT.
"So they were carrying out this attack certainly with the backing of the US," he added.
The political analyst argues we need to look at the region in general. "Until 2011, Turkey
had a policy in the Middle East which was considered quite diplomatic and progressive; it had a good-neighborly
policy," said O'Colmain.
The expert suggested that the long-term strategy of the US is to use Turkey as a tool to destabilize
Russia, and that was confirmed recently by the head of Stratfor, George Friedman, who said:
"In the future you're going to see Turkey emerge as a new maritime power."
"... You have a Turkish speaking population in Central Asia and in the North Caucasus region.
So Turkey has a lot of levers to pull with Russia, and what we're seeing with these attacks is an
attempt to raise the tension with Russia," O'Colmain told RT.
"Of course Russia is destroying the Islamic State, and Turkey needs to keep the IS going in
Syria. They have been openly backing it, and that had been openly admitted by the western press,"
analyst added.
Turkey-Russia proxy war in Syria
We effectively have a proxy war, says Nader Hashemi,
Assistant Professor of Middle East Politics at the University of Denver.
"This is much less about violating Turkish airspace and much more about the fact that both
Russia and Turkey are backing different sides in the conflict in Syria. And we effectively have a
proxy war. And these types of clashes and conflicts were completely predictable and inevitable",
he told RT.
Nader Hashemi thinks US-made TOW missiles are being used in a way that "advances US interests
in this particular conflict, so they have no problem with those missiles being used in that capacity
and in that direction."
Meanwhile, the US holds the opinion that Bashar al-Assad is the primary source of the problem
in Syria and Russia's policy in supporting Bashar al-Assad is "extending and perpetuating the
crisis."
"The US has no particular problem in allowing its missiles to be used by rebel forces that
it considers friendly," Hashemi continued.
"It explains why there has been relative silence with respect to the use of its own missiles
in this particular context."
Turkey committed 'foolish and rash decision' in attacking Russian jet
Turkey feels a political need to show its strength inside the country as well as in the Middle East
region, Senior Policy Consultant from British American Security Information Council Ted Seay told
RT.
"In fact in early October there were supposedly a couple of incursions by Russian military aircraft
into Turkish airspace – they were chased away," said Seay.
"What has happened now, I believe, is that Turkey is feeling some kind of political need, whether
it is domestically or for its regional sort of audience, to show its strength in these things, and
it has made a very foolish and rash decision in firing missiles at a Russian aircraft just to do
this," he added.
He argues that "Turkey is in the unfortunate position of being a frontline state with the Syrian
civil war, on the one hand, and a NATO ally, on the other."
"It looks to me, as someone who has worked in NATO for several years – that there was ineffective
coordination beforehand with NATO authorities and with the allies about how Turkey ought to be ready
to respond if, for example, future incidents along the lines of early October again with, again,
these alleged airspace incursions happened again," Seay told RT.
He said that there should have been a rehearsal for what is and isn't acceptable under these circumstances.
"Quite frankly, apart from self-defense, firing of air-to-air missiles is not acceptable," the expert
added.
Acting against Russia not in Erdogan's interest
Ankara took action against a Russian fighter
jet because the plane got too close to some serious interests of Turkey, former senior security policy
analyst in the office of the US Secretary of Defense Michael Maloof told RT.
It is not in Erdogan's interest to escalate conflict with Russia any further, former senior security
policy analyst in the office of the US Secretary of Defense Michael Maloof told RT.
"Well, I think right now it's avoiding escalation and cooler heads hopefully will prevail
so that Turkey doesn't try to invoke
Article 5 under
the NATO treaty [Collective Defence]," Maloof told RT.
He said they tried that a few years ago when they shot down a Syrian jet. "But again cooler
heads prevailed and they just decided to invoke
Article 4 which
was to have a consultation. Hopefully that will happen again," he added.
"What happened was that the Russian jet got too close to some very serious interests of Turkey,
and that is why they probably took action," Maloof said.
"It is probably one of the routes through which they send their forces in through Turkey into
Syria to fight on behalf of the jihadist groups," he told RT.
Maloof suspects the Russian jet was getting too close "since it was aiming at possibly Al-Nusra
or one of the other jihadist groups that was on the ground."
Expert believes that it is really not in Erdogan's interest to escalate this thing any further.
"Turkey has tremendous relations and exchanges with Russia from energy to a lot of trade,"
he said.
"It is only right that the two sides get together and talk this thing out. But I don't see
NATO getting engaged in this except to have consultations, because the last thing the European countries
want - including the US – is an armed conflict with Russia," Maloof added.
The sole survivor of the downed Russian warplane, its
navigator no less, categorically denies that his aircraft crossed into
Turkish airspace. He also says no visual or radio warning was given before
his aircraft was fired at.
The navigator of the Russian Su-24 shot down by a Turkish fighter jet on
Tuesday insists that his plane did not cross into Turkey's airspace, and
says he was given no visual or radio warning before being fired at.
"It's impossible that we violated their airspace even for a second,"
Konstantin Murakhtin told RT and other Russian media. "We were flying at an
altitude of 6,000 meters in completely clear weather, and I had total
control of our flight path throughout."
As well as denying Ankara's
assertions that the plane was in Turkey's airspace, Murakhtin, who says he
knows the mission area "like the back of my hand," also refuted Turkish
officials' claims that the pilots were warned repeatedly.
"In actual fact, there were no warnings at all. Neither through the radio,
nor visually, so we did not at any point adjust our course. You need to
understand the difference in speed between a tactical bomber like a Su-24,
and that of the F16. If they wanted to warn us, they could have sat on our
wing," said Murakhtin, who is currently recuperating at Russia's airbase in
Latakia, northern Syria.
"As it was, the missile hit the back of our plane out of nowhere. We didn't
even have time to make an evasive maneuver."
READ MORE: Leaked Ankara UN letter claims Su-24's 'air space violation'
lasted 17 seconds
As the plane was hit and went down in Syria, the two pilots ejected. Captain
Sergey Rumyantsev was killed, with a rebel Turkmen brigade claiming they
shot him to death while he was still parachuting.
Murakhtin was extracted in a 12-hour joint operation by Russian and Syrian
special forces, in which a Russian marine died.
"... Conspicuously missing from President Hollande's decisive declaration of war, however, was any mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship. ..."
"... Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS. The figure, according to the US Army's Foreign Studies Military Office (FSMO), is likely exaggerated, but corroborated "by Uighurs captured with Turkish passports in Thailand and Malaysia." ..."
"... direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now 'undeniable.' ..."
"... The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. "The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed," said the official. "There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both." ..."
"... The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross the "border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February." ISIS militants would freely travel "through Turkey in a convoy of trucks," and stop "at safehouses along the way." ..."
"... In January, authenticated official documents of the Turkish military were leaked online, showing that Turkey's intelligence services had been caught in Adana by military officers transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition via truck "to the al-Qaeda terror organisation" in Syria. ..."
"... According to other ISIS suspects facing trial in Turkey, the Turkish national military intelligence organization (MIT) had begun smuggling arms, including NATO weapons to jihadist groups in Syria as early as 2011. ..."
"... Documents leaked in September 2014 showed that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had financed weapons shipments to ISIS through Turkey. ..."
"... A report by the Turkish Statistics Institute confirmed that the government had provided at least $1 million in arms to Syrian rebels within that period, contradicting official denials. Weapons included grenades, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, firearms, ammunition, hunting rifles and other weapons?-?but the Institute declined to identify the specific groups receiving the shipments. ..."
"... Turkey has also played a key role in facilitating the life-blood of ISIS' expansion: black market oil sales. Senior political and intelligence sources in Turkey and Iraq confirm that Turkish authorities have actively facilitated ISIS oil sales through the country. ..."
"... Last summer, Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People's Party, estimated the quantity of ISIS oil sales in Turkey at about $800 million?-?that was over a year ago. ..."
"... Meanwhile, NATO leaders feign outrage and learned liberal pundits continue to scratch their heads in bewilderment as to ISIS' extraordinary resilience and inexorable expansion. ..."
"... "Had Turkey placed the same kind of absolute blockade on Isis territories as they did on Kurdish-held parts of Syria… that blood-stained 'caliphate' would long since have collapsed?-?and arguably, the Paris attacks may never have happened. And if Turkey were to do the same today, Isis would probably collapse in a matter of months. Yet, has a single western leader called on Erdo?an to do this?" ..."
"... The consistent transfers of CIA-Gulf-Turkish arms supplies to ISIS have been documented through analysis of weapons serial numbers by the UK-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR), whose database on the illicit weapons trade is funded by the EU and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. ..."
"... ISIS, in other words, is state-sponsored?-?indeed, sponsored by purportedly Western-friendly regimes in the Muslim world, who are integral to the anti-ISIS coalition. ..."
"... Remember when neocon intellectuals were talking about using proxy forces to roll back Syria in 1996? Good thing for Israel most mouth breathing morons only get their news from the zio box. ..."
For the better part of a year, Turkey remained on the sidelines in the "fight" against ISIS.
Then, on July 20, a
powerful explosion ripped through the town of Suruc. 33 people were killed including a number
of Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) members
who planned to assist in the rebuilding of Kobani.
The attack was promptly attributed to Islamic State who took "credit" for the tragedy the next
day.
To be sure, the attack came at a rather convenient time for President Tayyip Erdogan. A little
over a month earlier, the ruling AKP party lost its absolute parliamentary majority in part due to
a strong showing at the ballot box for the pro-Kurdish (and PKK-aligned) HDP. What happened in the
wake of the Suruc bombing was nothing short of a largely successful attempt on Erdogan's part to
use fear and violence to scare the electorate into restoring AKP's dominance in snap elections that
took place earlier this month.
In short, Erdogan used Suruc as an excuse to begin a "war on terror." Part and parcel of the new
campaign was an invite from Ankara for Washington to use Turkey's Incirlik air base. Subsequently,
Erdogan reminded the world that the PKK is also considered a terrorist organization and as such,
the anti-ISIS campaign would also include a crackdown on Kurdish militants operating in Turkey.
Erdogan proceeded to focus squarely on the PKK, all but ignoring ISIS while simultaneously undercutting
the coalition building process on the way to calling for new elections. Unsurprisingly, AKP put
on a much better showing in the electoral redo, and with that, Erdogan had succeeded in using ISIS
as a smokescreen to start a civil war with the PKK, in the process frightening voters into restoring
his party's grip on power.
Through it all, the PKK has suggested that Ankara is and always has been in bed with Islamic
State. That contention will come as no surprise to those who frequent these pages. It's common
knowledge that Turkey backs the FSA and participates in the US/Saudi-led effort to supply Syrian
rebels with weapons, money, and training. Indeed, those weapons were on full display Tuesday when
the FSA's 1st Coastal Brigade
used a US-made TOW to destroy a Russian search and rescue helicopter. That came just hours
after the Turkmen FSA-allied Alwiya al-Ashar militia
posted a video of its fighters celebrating over the body of an ejected Russian pilot.
In short, Turkey has made a habit out of supporting anyone and everyone who opposes Assad in Syria
and that includes ISIS. In fact, if one were to rank the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in order
of who is suspected of providing the most assistance to Islamic State, Turkey would likely top the
list. Here's what Vladimir Putin had to say earlier today after Turkey downed the Russian Su-24:
PUTIN: OIL FROM ISLAMIC STATE IS BEING SHIPPED TO TURKEY
PUTIN SAYS ISLAMIC STATE GETS CASH BY SELLING OIL TO TURKEY
PUTIN: ISLAMIC STATE GETS MILITARY SUPPORT FROM MANY STATES
It's with all of this in mind that we bring you excerpts from a new piece by Nafeez Ahmed who,
you're reminded,
penned a lengthy
expose earlier this year explaining how the US views ISIS as a "strategic asset."
In his latest, Ahmed takes a close look at the relationship between Ankara and Islamic State. The
evidence is truly damning.
"We stand alongside Turkey in its efforts in protecting its national security and fighting
against terrorism. France and Turkey are on the same side within the framework of the international
coalition against the terrorist group ISIS." --Statement by French Foreign Ministry, July 2015
The 13th November Paris massacre will be remembered, like 9/11, as a defining moment in world
history.
The murder of 129 people, the injury of 352 more, by 'Islamic State' (ISIS) acolytes striking
multiple targets simultaneously in the heart of Europe, mark a major sea-change in the terror threat.
For the first time, a Mumbai-style attack has occurred on Western soil?-?the worst attack on Europe
in decades. As such, it has triggered a seemingly commensurate response from France: the declaration
of a nationwide state of emergency, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1961 Algerian
war.
ISIS has followed up with threats to attack Washington and New York City.
Meanwhile, President Hollande wants European Union leaders to suspend the Schengen Agreement on
open borders to allow dramatic restrictions on freedom of movement across Europe. He also demands
the EU-wide adoption of the Passenger Name Records (PNR) system allowing intelligence services to
meticulously track the travel patterns of Europeans, along with an extension of the state of emergency
to at least three months.
Under the extension, French police can now block any website, put people under house arrest without
trial, search homes without a warrant, and prevent suspects from meeting others deemed a threat.
"We know that more attacks are being prepared, not just against France but also against other
European countries," said the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. "We are going to live with this
terrorist threat for a long time."
Hollande plans to strengthen the powers of police and security services under new anti-terror
legislation, and to pursue amendments to the constitution that would permanently enshrine the state
of emergency into French politics. "We need an appropriate tool we can use without having to resort
to the state of emergency," he explained.
Parallel with martial law at home, Hollande was quick to accelerate military action abroad, launching
30 airstrikes on over a dozen Islamic State targets in its de facto capital, Raqqa.
[...]
Conspicuously missing from President Hollande's decisive declaration of war, however, was any
mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship.
Syrian passports discovered near the bodies of two of the suspected Paris attackers, according
to police sources, were fake, and likely forged in Turkey.
Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000
fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS. The figure, according to the US Army's Foreign Studies
Military Office (FSMO), is likely exaggerated, but corroborated "by Uighurs captured with Turkish
passports in Thailand and Malaysia."
[...]
A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer
from a major raid on an ISIS safehouse told the Guardian that "direct dealings between Turkish officials
and ranking ISIS members was now 'undeniable.'"
The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting
ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate
in Syria. "The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed," said the official.
"There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both."
In a rare insight into this brazen state-sponsorship of ISIS, a year ago Newsweek reported the
testimony of a former ISIS communications technician, who had travelled to Syria to fight the regime
of Bashir al-Assad.
The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross
the "border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of
Serekaniye in northern Syria in February." ISIS militants would freely travel "through Turkey
in a convoy of trucks," and stop "at safehouses along the way."
The former ISIS communication technician also admitted that he would routinely "connect ISIS field
captains and commanders from Syria with people in Turkey on innumerable occasions," adding that "the
people they talked to were Turkish officials… ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because
there was full cooperation with the Turks."
In January, authenticated official documents of the Turkish military were leaked online, showing
that Turkey's intelligence services had been caught in Adana by military officers transporting missiles,
mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition via truck "to the al-Qaeda terror organisation" in Syria.
According to other ISIS suspects facing trial in Turkey, the Turkish national military intelligence
organization (MIT) had begun smuggling arms, including NATO weapons to jihadist groups in Syria as
early as 2011.
The allegations have been corroborated by a prosecutor and court testimony of Turkish military
police officers, who confirmed that Turkish intelligence was delivering arms to Syrian jihadists
from 2013 to 2014.
Documents leaked in September 2014 showed that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan had financed weapons
shipments to ISIS through Turkey. A clandestine plane from Germany delivered arms in the Etimesgut
airport in Turkey and split into three containers, two of which were dispatched to ISIS.
A report by the Turkish Statistics Institute confirmed that the government had provided at least
$1 million in arms to Syrian rebels within that period, contradicting official denials. Weapons included
grenades, heavy artillery, anti-aircraft guns, firearms, ammunition, hunting rifles and other weapons?-?but
the Institute declined to identify the specific groups receiving the shipments.
Information of that nature emerged separately. Just two months ago, Turkish police raided a news
outlet that published revelations on how the local customs director had approved weapons shipments
from Turkey to ISIS.
Turkey has also played a key role in facilitating the life-blood of ISIS' expansion: black
market oil sales. Senior political and intelligence sources in Turkey and Iraq confirm that Turkish
authorities have actively facilitated ISIS oil sales through the country.
Last summer, Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People's Party,
estimated the quantity of ISIS oil sales in Turkey at about $800 million?-?that was over a year ago.
By now, this implies that Turkey has facilitated over $1 billion worth of black market ISIS
oil sales to date.
[...]
The liberal Turkish daily Taraf quoted an AKP founder, Dengir Mir Mehmet F?rat, admitting: "In
order to weaken the developments in Rojova [Kurdish province in Syria] the government gave concessions
and arms to extreme religious groups…the government was helping the wounded. The Minister of Health
said something such as, it's a human obligation to care for the ISIS wounded."
The paper also reported that ISIS militants routinely receive medical treatment in hospitals in
southeast Turkey-?including al-Baghdadi's right-hand man.
[...]
Meanwhile, NATO leaders feign outrage and learned liberal pundits continue to scratch their heads
in bewilderment as to ISIS' extraordinary resilience and inexorable expansion.
[...]
As Professor David Graeber of London School of Economics pointed out:
"Had Turkey placed the same kind of absolute blockade on Isis territories as they did on Kurdish-held
parts of Syria… that blood-stained 'caliphate' would long since have collapsed?-?and arguably,
the Paris attacks may never have happened. And if Turkey were to do the same today, Isis would
probably collapse in a matter of months. Yet, has a single western leader called on Erdo?an to
do this?"
[...]
In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2014, General Martin
Dempsey, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked by Senator Lindsay Graham whether
he knew of "any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL"?
General Dempsey replied:
"I know major Arab allies who fund them."
In other words, the most senior US military official at the time had confirmed that ISIS was being
funded by the very same "major Arab allies" that had just joined the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.
These allies include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait in particular.
[...]
Porous links between some Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, Islamist militant groups like al-Nusra,
Ahrar al-Sham and ISIS, have enabled prolific weapons transfers from 'moderate' to Islamist militants.
The consistent transfers of CIA-Gulf-Turkish arms supplies to ISIS have been documented through
analysis of weapons serial numbers by the UK-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR), whose database
on the illicit weapons trade is funded by the EU and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
[...]
ISIS, in other words, is state-sponsored?-?indeed, sponsored by purportedly Western-friendly regimes
in the Muslim world, who are integral to the anti-ISIS coalition.
Which then begs the question as to why Hollande and other Western leaders expressing their
determination to "destroy" ISIS using all means necessary, would prefer to avoid the most significant
factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS' emergence in the context of ongoing Gulf and
Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region.
WTFRLY
Every alternative theory about Syria and ISIS, Serena Shim proved, on video. They killed her
the same day as those airdrops to the Kurds where one was confirmed to fall into ISIS hands...
Remember when neocon intellectuals were talking about using proxy forces to "roll back"
Syria in 1996? Good thing for Israel most mouth breathing morons only get their news from the
zio box.
"... Overt military response is unlikely, except that from now on any Turkish AF aircraft that enters Syrian airspace would be summarily destroyed. ..."
"... Obama remarked that if Putin stopped bombing "moderate" Syrian rebels, then Russian planes wouldn't get shot down. Judging from that remark, it would seem that the Turks and USA want to force the Russians to back away from bombing Nusra positions anywhere near the Turkish border, i.e. a de facto no-fly zone. ..."
"... Certainly there was nothing accidental or unforeseen about the Turkish attack. The Turks fully intended to attack some Russian aircraft and were waiting for an opportunity. ..."
"... The Syrian War is growing past the stage of proxy war. This is now heading toward conventional confrontation between powers. Few of the current world leaders have relevant experience during their lifetimes of either waging such wars, or of avoiding them. ..."
"... Obama's remarks certainly made me wonder if the the Turks had the green light from Washington. He also returned to the standard demand that Assad must go. His remarks appeared to put the blame on Russia and certainly won't help matters. I wouldn't put it pass the neocons that shooting down a Russian plane is all just part of the gameplan. ..."
"... What gets me is that this likely means that Erdogan is getting a much stronger grip on Turkish military, which historically was the only thing that held Turkey secular (in fact, it felt it was its mission from Kemal Ataturk). Or, in what could be even scarier is that military did this deliberately assuming any Putin's reaction would target Erdogan much more than the military, in which case a phrase "rogue generals playing with a nuclear power" comes to mind. ..."
"... As mentioned above, the best response Russia could make right now is to help Kurds with weapons/supplies and establishing no-fly zone over Syria's Kurds. Since Kurds are officially seen by most of the West as "good" (let's ignore the need to have everything black and white for a second), it would be very hard for Turkey to object, even if Russia shoots down some Turkish planes/helicopters over Syria. ..."
"... The governments of "new" members in the Balkans and even Central Europe may say whatever they want, they are figureheads. The populace will not allow any situation where they enter a war against Russia on behalf of Turkey. Too much bad history there, for six centuries now. In Bulgaria the man on the street is right now in a very bad mood and very anti-turk. ..."
"... Here, on the street, everyone see Turkey as an emerging Islamist menace, looking to grab some land in Europe. ..."
"... The Russian bomber shot down is one of the cascade of catastrophic events that started with the West's determination to destabilize Eurasia with proxy neo-Nazi and Jihadist forces and Russia's counter intervention into Syria. ..."
"... Its pretty clear that the Turks deliberately decided to attack a Russian plane in revenge for earlier Russian incursions, hoping that NATO membership protects them from a counter response. The historical analogies that come to mind are numerous – from Armenians carrying out attacks on Turks hoping that 'Christian powers' would come to their aid when the Turks retaliated, to Paul Pot attacking the Vietnamese assuming that China would come to his aid. Both those didn't exactly end well. ..."
"... He can do lots of things to make things more difficult for Turkey. Other people in this thread noted gas deliveries, tourist income, exports and those are a nice place to start. And how about arming the YPG/PKK; now that would be some poetic justice right there. ..."
"... I think Putin is probably, unfortunately, the most rational leader out of a sad bunch. I think the Russian response will be graduated: Cutting tourism, sabotaging Turkish exports with bureaucracy, Russian gas contracts will face sudden bureaucratic difficulties, later the Kurds may suddenly be much better armed and Russia will certainly bomb the everliving shit out of the entire "Turkish terrorist infrastructure" right along the borders, this time going with fighter escorts and perhaps even full ECM support (If they go with ECM support, *that* would be ominous indeed, once these systems are used, they get measured and analyzed, counter-counter measures come up and it's back to the lab for another 20 years). ..."
"... The danger to Russia is that the Turks close the Bophorus. Huge amounts of Russian trade and oil, and their supplies to Syria, ship through this point. ..."
"... The Turks can't and won't close the Bosphorus over economic sanctions. They can try over an eventual shoot-down of a Turkish jet over Syria, but then again the very presence of Turkish jets conducting bombing runs inside Syria is an act of aggression and unless Erdogan wants a Kurdish insurgency armed by Russia inside Turkey proper he won't try to close the shipping lanes. ..."
"... 'The difference between "attack" and "defense" can be infinitesimal, especially if you control the media.' ..."
"... Are the Turks the wild card or is this NATO's project green light? This seems more in line with the Russians must pay for Snowden, Crimea, and Assad than Turkey going off the reservation. ISIL is once again a secondary consideration as Russia must be further backed into a corner. Holland's request that Obama join Russia seems to have been conveniently preempted by world events. Putin is learning that there is no greater crime than embarrassing the West. ..."
"... McInerney said that while he was a NORAD commander in Alaska they would never have done anything like this. ..."
"... If one believes Sibel Edmonds analysis on Operation Gladio B, specifically centered on NATO and the CIAs fostering of criminal organizations to do their dirty work for them, extending so far as to breaking Interpols most wanted criminals out of prisons to work for them, then Turkeys role in fostering ISIS in Syria and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang make perfect sense. ..."
"... The question remains, who is actually conducting this asymmetric warfare? Who are the real puppet masters? My money is on the neocons and the MIC. ..."
"... Fast forward to last month and it is a Russian passenger jet blown up with 224 lives on board by ISIS - which most people know by now is funded, trained, and supplied by various parties including Langley. This week and this time it is a Russian jet fighting ISIS and its ilk shot down over the Syrian border by an actual NATO Turkish F16 jet. Then Youtube videos emerge of FSA rebels killing its ejected pilot and navigator. To crown the whole thing off, a Russian Search and Rescue helicopter is blown up with a US-made TOW missile. Provocations rarely come this extreme and so serendipitously for the provocateurs. ..."
Does Turkey think that Russia will just shut up and accept their dead? Seriously? Some of the
articles in our Western media have been truly bad on this development and have been mocking both
Putin and the Russians. The whole thing absolutely reeks of a set-up, including the destruction
of that rescue helicopter. Whatever the Russians decide to do it will not end well for Turkey.
Putin might just decide to establish a protective umbrella over the Syrian Kurds and stop the
Turks from bombing them. Will the Turks then complain to the UN or NATO when some of their aircraft
are taken out whilst illegally flying uninvited over a foreign country (Syria) and bombing its
citizens (Syrian Kurds)?
As for the Turkmen in Syria, I would not want to be them after murdering those pilots. Especially
when they could have traded them to Russia for only 'light' treatment by the Russian military.
Turkey apparently, has been wanting to take this part of Syria and fold it into Turkey. Not gunna
happen now but I am guessing that the Islamist militants will be marked for special targeting
now.
OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 12:28 am
Overt military response is unlikely, except that from now on any Turkish AF aircraft that
enters Syrian airspace would be summarily destroyed. There will be a huge pressure from on
Putin to send a few turks to meet their allah but such didn't work in Ukraine and won't work now.
Rather, the huge Russian tourist stream to Turkey will disappear, Turkish exports to Russia
will be banned, gas supplies will be disrupted due to 'technical reasons' and 'pipeline maintenance',
and various financial and government institutions will find themselves under a sustained electronic
attacks.
In private Europe is horrified, regardless of what poodle Stoltenberg might say, and most blame
Sultan Erdogan for the migrant crisis and for the subsequent blackmail of Europe by the neo-ottoman
idiocracy in Ankara. This went too far, and came too soon after Paris, for even the lemmings not
to notice whose side Turkey is really on. I am next door right now, and let's just say that the
'man on the street' opinion is harshly and violently anti-turk. Europe will soon be making a choice
either way, and 0bama is not helping the US much with his peevish belligerence.
Bill Smith, November 25, 2015 at 7:00 am
Might be tricky doing that as other countries aircraft are staging out of Turkey to bomb targets
in Syria.
OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 7:17 am
If Russia and Syria declare that any aircraft entering Syrian airspace from Turkey will be
considered hostile and is therefore subject to being shot down, US and French aircraft will bug
out and use the Med corridor, pending Russian and Syrian approval. Either way, it will be open
season on Turkish jets in Syrian airspace. And rightly so, all Turkey does is enable ISIS by bombing
the PKK and arming/oil trading with IS. Putin did not just state that Russia was stabbed in the
back by terrorist enablers for nothing.
Roland, November 25, 2015 at 1:10 am
Obama remarked that if Putin stopped bombing "moderate" Syrian rebels, then Russian planes
wouldn't get shot down. Judging from that remark, it would seem that the Turks and USA want to
force the Russians to back away from bombing Nusra positions anywhere near the Turkish border,
i.e. a de facto no-fly zone.
Certainly there was nothing accidental or unforeseen about the Turkish attack. The Turks
fully intended to attack some Russian aircraft and were waiting for an opportunity.
The Syrian War is growing past the stage of proxy war. This is now heading toward conventional
confrontation between powers. Few of the current world leaders have relevant experience during
their lifetimes of either waging such wars, or of avoiding them.
My prediction is that Russia will fight much harder in Syria than would seem "rational." For Russia
the question is whether or not they can sustain an alliance. For Russia the Syrian War is not
just about Syria, it is about Belarus and other former Soviet republics.
I will be surprised if the Russians back off here. I wonder what the Turks will do when a future
batch of Russian air strikes near the Turkish border all have proper fighter escort? Would the
Turks engage in a full-fledged air superiority battle at the Syrian frontier?
Would the Russians risk exposing valuable electronic countermeasures assets to enemy observation
and assessment, in anything less than a major war?
At any rate, ISIS leaders are chortling. These stupid big lugs are about to lurch into one another
and send themselves brawling and sprawling. And all they had to do was shoot some concertgoers!
William C, November 25, 2015 at 8:50 am
The FT is reporting that Turkey has imposed an exclusion zone over Syrian airspace that runs
fifteen miles into Syria.
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy?
Jagger, November 25, 2015 at 9:47 am
Obama remarked that if Putin stopped bombing "moderate" Syrian rebels, then Russian planes
wouldn't get shot down.
judging from that remark, it would seem that the Turks and USA want to force the Russians to
back away from bombing Nusra positions anywhere near the Turkish border, i.e. a de facto no-fly
zone.
Obama's remarks certainly made me wonder if the the Turks had the green light from Washington.
He also returned to the standard demand that Assad must go. His remarks appeared to put the blame
on Russia and certainly won't help matters. I wouldn't put it pass the neocons that shooting down
a Russian plane is all just part of the gameplan.
Fajensen, November 25, 2015 at 2:22 am
Europe has been at war with Turkey – on and off – for about 1300 years.
It is pretty unlikely (and certain political suicide) that any European country will enter a war
*for* Turkey, regardless of any NATO onligations. It's just not done!
The joker is of course the new NATO members (and Sweden) they are always gagging to have go at
Russia – if they could just get the US to do all the work for them. Unfortunately, The US have
enough bellicose crazies to like this idea.
vlade, November 25, 2015 at 4:16 am
The general feeling in what you call the "new NATO" countries (i.e. ex Soviet block) is that
Turkey massively overstepped. They have deep seated (and historically very much justified) suspicion
of Russia and its actions, but they like islamists even less, and Turkey's shift from secularism
went much less unnoticed than in the rest of Europe/US. After all, Russia isn't the only one who
invaded/occupied most of them during the last few hundreds of years..
What gets me is that this likely means that Erdogan is getting a much stronger grip on Turkish
military, which historically was the only thing that held Turkey secular (in fact, it felt it
was its mission from Kemal Ataturk). Or, in what could be even scarier is that military did this
deliberately assuming any Putin's reaction would target Erdogan much more than the military, in
which case a phrase "rogue generals playing with a nuclear power" comes to mind.
As mentioned above, the best response Russia could make right now is to help Kurds with weapons/supplies
and establishing no-fly zone over Syria's Kurds. Since Kurds are officially seen by most of the
West as "good" (let's ignore the need to have everything black and white for a second), it would
be very hard for Turkey to object, even if Russia shoots down some Turkish planes/helicopters
over Syria.
OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 5:36 am
Exactly. I imagine you are Serbian, I am from Bulgaria by birth and currently there on a short
vacation. The governments of "new" members in the Balkans and even Central Europe may say
whatever they want, they are figureheads. The populace will not allow any situation where they
enter a war against Russia on behalf of Turkey. Too much bad history there, for six centuries
now. In Bulgaria the man on the street is right now in a very bad mood and very anti-turk.
Accordingly even the government figureheads are unusually subdued and cautious in what they say
in reaction to the downing of the Russian jet. To put not too fine a point on it, people are scared
of a nuclear conflagration and the situation is explosive.
fajensen, November 25, 2015 at 6:18 am
Sorry my mistake for generalizing.
I was thinking about Georgia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – which only last week (according
to Danish media) were eager for "steps to be taken against Russia". Sweden would be totally eager
to prove to the world (which actually don't care about Sweden) that they are *so totally not racists*
that they (well, "they" being the official Sweden) will readily step up and defend any belief
system, the more alien, obnoxious and perverse the better, for "proof of non-racistness". It's
really, really weird and strange.
Here, on the street, everyone see Turkey as an emerging Islamist menace, looking to grab some
land in Europe.
VietnamVet, November 25, 2015 at 3:57 am
The Russian bomber shot down is one of the cascade of catastrophic events that started
with the West's determination to destabilize Eurasia with proxy neo-Nazi and Jihadist forces and
Russia's counter intervention into Syria. There are five nuclear countries flying sorties
over Syria; Russia, USA, Israel, France and the United Kingdom. World War III is underway but
it is unacknowledged. If the rulers headquartered in London, Frankfurt, New York and Washington
DC don't fear extinction from the ignition of hydrogen bombs overhead, then that is exactly what
will happen. The War will inevitably escalate with no one trying to damp it down.
One alternative to destroying the Northern Hemisphere is to forget regime change and join in
an alliance with Russia and the rest of the world to eliminate the Islamic State and quarantine
radical Islam.
Plutoniumkun, November 25, 2015 at 5:32 am
Its pretty clear that the Turks deliberately decided to attack a Russian plane in revenge
for earlier Russian incursions, hoping that NATO membership protects them from a counter response.
The historical analogies that come to mind are numerous – from Armenians carrying out attacks
on Turks hoping that 'Christian powers' would come to their aid when the Turks retaliated, to
Paul Pot attacking the Vietnamese assuming that China would come to his aid. Both those didn't
exactly end well.
I think the key danger here is Russia. Putin knows full well that Germany and France will not
respond to a request for help from Turkey, no matter what NATO's agreements state. He may see
it as an ideal opportunity to rip NATO apart. He may gamble that a strike against Turkey strong
enough to humiliate it, but calculated enough to ensure that the the Germans/French won't join
in (the UK will do whatever Obama tells them) would make the NATO agreement a dead letter. He
may well succeed. The problem comes if he miscalculates.
drexciya, November 25, 2015 at 5:48 am
Turkey needs to be taken down a bit, so I wouldn't mind Putin learning Erdogan a lesson. But
I think Putin is more subtle. He can do lots of things to make things more difficult for Turkey.
Other people in this thread noted gas deliveries, tourist income, exports and those are a nice
place to start. And how about arming the YPG/PKK; now that would be some poetic justice right
there.
vlade, November 25, 2015 at 5:59 am
strike directly against Turkey? that would escalate massively, and could backfire like Polish
invasion in WW2, where Hitler thought allies would just roll over as ever before. Except they
didn't. Rest assured that this similarity would be drawn out very quickly.
On the other hand, shooting down a Turkish jet or three over Syria, especially if the jets were
bombing Kurds, now that would make a different story. Mind you, even that would be a large esaclation
but unlikely to draw in NATO...
fajensen, November 25, 2015 at 6:40 am
NATO should have croaked along with the USSR. I'm quite fine with NATO splitting at the seams
– because – right now it's a bunch of obsolete war-planners looking for some fight to justify
their continued existence, any fight, in fact, NATO today is pretty much a mercenary force for
the USA. No way nearly enough equipped for taking on any serious opponent, but good enough for
bombing the shit out of places with poor air defense and weak friends. Of course 50% of the population
feels the exact opposite way.
I think Putin is probably, unfortunately, the most rational leader out of a sad bunch. I think
the Russian response will be graduated: Cutting tourism, sabotaging Turkish exports with bureaucracy,
Russian gas contracts will face sudden bureaucratic difficulties, later the Kurds may suddenly
be much better armed and Russia will certainly bomb the everliving shit out of the entire "Turkish
terrorist infrastructure" right along the borders, this time going with fighter escorts and perhaps
even full ECM support (If they go with ECM support, *that* would be ominous indeed, once these
systems are used, they get measured and analyzed, counter-counter measures come up and it's back
to the lab for another 20 years).
Maybe the Greek's will see an opportunity to pop one off at one of the many, many Turkish violations
of Greek airspace?
OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 6:54 am
The turks violate Greek airspace several thousand times a year. It's the turkish version of
American exceptionalism.
Jim Haygood, November 25, 2015 at 9:24 am
'NATO – right now it's a bunch of obsolete war-planners looking for some fight to justify their
continued existence, any fight.'
Amen, bro. WW I demonstrated how strategic alliances with mutual defense guarantees could escalate
disastrously.
NATO lost its reason for existence when the USSR collapsed. Then it began violating its own treaty
with "out of area" aggression (Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan).
Clearly, NATO has degenerated into a rogue organization, serving as a fig leaf for US military
occupation of Europe 70 years after the war ended. Will Europe ever develop enough backbone to
expel its American occupiers?
russell1200, November 25, 2015 at 8:40 am
The danger to Russia is that the Turks close the Bophorus. Huge amounts of Russian trade
and oil, and their supplies to Syria, ship through this point.
It is the obvious response to a too forceful response, and obviously escalates in an extreme way.
OIFVet, November 25, 2015 at 8:54 am
The Turks can't and won't close the Bosphorus over economic sanctions. They can try over
an eventual shoot-down of a Turkish jet over Syria, but then again the very presence of Turkish
jets conducting bombing runs inside Syria is an act of aggression and unless Erdogan wants a Kurdish
insurgency armed by Russia inside Turkey proper he won't try to close the shipping lanes.
Erdogan is nuts but I don't think he is that stupid. In any case, as a native Bulgarian I view
a non-Kemalist, islamist, sultan erdogan-led turkey as a danger for regional and global peace
and in such case I won't mind one bit the return of Constantinople to Greece and to Orthodox christendom.
nothing but the truth, November 25, 2015 at 7:12 am
you will definitely see SAM missiles being launched against Turkish aircraft from Syrian border
areas.
The way NATO is set up it will inevitably lead to a member country pulling everyone into a world
war.
The difference between "attack" and "defense" can be infinitesimal, especially if you control
the media.
NATO members will push Russia till it retaliates, then all NATO says "game on" and WWW3 is in
full mode.
Turkey wouldnt dare do this unless it was part of NATO. So NATO basically has increased member
bellicosity and misadventurism.
Jim Haygood, November 25, 2015 at 9:31 am
'The difference between "attack" and "defense" can be infinitesimal, especially if you
control the media.'
Our brave stenographers on the front lines of the media battle already are producing telling strikes,
such as this morning's NYT article asserting Turkey's 'nuanced reasons' for attacking Russia's
aircraft.
Huddled in our bomb shelters, we can draw comfort from the majestic chords of the media's Mighty
Wurlitzer.
ex-PFC Chuck, November 25, 2015 at 7:29 am
The Russian responses under Putin will be subtle, strategic surprises, and most likely effective
just as they have been in the Ukraine situation. But they will be short of anything that gives
cause to the Erdogan regime to formally declare war. Otherwise Turkey will be legally entitled
to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to Russian shipping, which would greatly complicate their
conduct of operations in Syria. As has been said many times in the past two years, he is playing
chess while his opponents are at best capable of something between tic tac toe and checkers.
hemeantwell, November 25, 2015 at 8:35 am
Right. Putin has a many options and he will not react in so headstrong a way as to lose them.
Erdogan was able - accusations of vote rigging aside - to boost AKP support through crisis escalation.
The shoot down is in a strong sense more of the same. But now Putin can work to isolate Turkey
from the rest of NATO, undercut Turkey's already struggling economy, justify aid to the Kurds.
I wonder what Erdogan's domestic opposition will do with this. Does anyone know what Gulen and
his supporters think?
Jagger, November 25, 2015 at 9:59 am
Right. Putin has a many options and he will not react in so headstrong a way as to lose them.
The problem is public opinion in Russia. They will expect a response and Putin must respond in
such a manner that he doesn't get assassinated or couped out of a job because he did not respond
forcefully. Putin is a competent or better leader but not invulnerable.
ltr, November 25, 2015 at 7:40 am
An absolute disgrace. Turkey has been encouraging and supporting the destruction of the Syrian
government for years and is supporting the destructive insurgents in Syria. Turkey has betrayed
the rest of NATO and betrayed Russia.
Dino Reno, November 25, 2015 at 8:43 am
Are the Turks the wild card or is this NATO's project green light? This seems more in line
with the Russians must pay for Snowden, Crimea, and Assad than Turkey going off the reservation.
ISIL is once again a secondary consideration as Russia must be further backed into a corner. Holland's
request that Obama join Russia seems to have been conveniently preempted by world events. Putin
is learning that there is no greater crime than embarrassing the West.
Cabreado
"Meanwhile, NATO leaders feign outrage and learned liberal pundits continue to scratch their
heads in bewilderment as to ISIS' extraordinary resilience and inexorable expansion."
The most important dynamic in play...
And the most important response is to (re)arrange your thinking to vigorously protect the Principles,
because this next war is also set to rip this place apart from within.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering
to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless
on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder ofTreason
shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
------
The problem will be sorting out who to charge. If the CIA has cooperated with ISIS, and is therefore,
as an agency, guilty of Treason, are all of the other people in government who gave any in the
CIA aid and comfort also guilty?
I think we should err on the side of justice here, and charge them all.
Just to remind everyone that this is a psyops game, and that anyone can play. As a systems guy
and player of games, I assure you that our distributed side of a periphery-vs-cental side of an
evolutionary arms race is a guaranteed win. It is our ingenuity against theirs, them mostly bureaucracies.
McInerney: Turkey Shooting Down Russian Plane Was a 'Very Bad Mistake'
McInerney said that while he was a NORAD commander in Alaska they would never
have done anything like this.
"This airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the territory," McInerney said. "It
was probably pressing the limits, that's fair. But you don't shoot 'em down just because of
that."
If one believes Sibel Edmond's analysis on Operation Gladio B, specifically centered on
NATO and the CIA's fostering of criminal organizations to do their dirty work for them, extending
so far as to breaking Interpol's most wanted criminals out of prisons to work for them, then Turkey's
role in fostering ISIS in Syria and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang make perfect sense. It compliments
the efforts of the war hawks in Washington who benefit from conflict: The neocon zionazis, the
MIC and others (Israel foremost, but Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Turkey who use the fear
of terrorism as a pretext to keep them in power and excuse their military expansion)
The question remains, who is actually conducting this asymmetric warfare? Who are the real
puppet masters? My money is on the neocons and the MIC.
Whoever it may be, a pattern of behaviour is emerging to start a major world war by poking at
Russia to the extreme point of no return. Consider Ukraine and its PM: Yatsenyuk (Supported by
US State Dept Victoria Nuland and NATO as the face of the Kiev coup) announcing on national tv
that he would burn all Russian speakers alive. Then this actually taking place all over Ukraine,
most famously at Odessa perpetrated by another Zionazi and Israeli dual national Igor Kolomoisky.
Even the current president Poroshenko now admits that the 2014 euromaidan "revolution" was a coup
d'etat. As if this wasn't incitement enough, we've had almost a continuous diet of MSM demonization
of Putin with several hundred fake "Russian invasion" reports and the downing of MH17. At the
same time, NATO mechanized troops have been gathering (In the case of Baltic States) a mere few
hundred feet from the Russian border.
Fast forward to last month and it is a Russian passenger jet blown up with 224 lives on board
by "ISIS" - which most people know by now is funded, trained, and supplied by various parties
including Langley. This week and this time it is a Russian jet fighting ISIS and its ilk shot
down over the Syrian border by an actual NATO Turkish F16 jet. Then Youtube videos emerge of FSA
rebels killing its ejected pilot and navigator. To crown the whole thing off, a Russian Search
and Rescue helicopter is blown up with a US-made TOW missile. Provocations rarely come this extreme
and so serendipitously for the provocateurs.
My two cents: There is a pattern to provoke a direct major war with Russia by Victoria Nuland/Kagan
and her ilk. It's insane and it's happening. This latest incident is a lure to force Russia into
rash action that will be used as the "proof" that has been so lacking to date to demonize Putin
in the msm worldwide to hearten the public to taste the blood of war. Sadly, it is delusional
to think anyone will survive the full scale nuclear exchange this war may initiate. The tiny portion
of humanity left will most likely be rendered sterile by the radiation from thousands of broken
and unattended nuclear power stations around the globe. It's game over if this is allowed to continue.
But maybe sanity will prevail and it will be a footnote in the annals of close calls.
HowdyDoody
Turkey was also up to its neck in supporting Chechen jihadists used against Russia. They were
both a transit route and a location for training camps.
It's worse than we think. Obama has given Erdogan the go ahead to seize Syrian Turkmen villages
at the G20 gathering
Shooting the plane down in Syrian territory is ipso facto a Turkish No Fly Zone
That is why it has happened now. Expect Turkish vs Russian air battles as Turkey defends its ill
gotten gains.
Dr. Bonzo
Very credible mainstream-available evidence links the 9/11 attacks to the CIA, Mossad, Pakistani
intelligence and Saudi Arabia. Why should we be surprised? The PNAC policy paper stated plain
as day for all to read regime change in Syria, Iraq and Iran. A casual look back at the mideast
wars of the last 14 years suggest this very dynamic was at play and remains at play. That the
mideast becomes even more destabilized isn't considered an issue of consequence. This is the chief
miscalculation by the Masters of the Universe. Israel is territorially not large enough to survive
a serious nuclear attack, and the increased nuclear proliferation and enmity engendered by this
fucktarded regime change obsession all but guarantees this outcome. It's not an issue of if, but
when.
Phillyguy
The goal of US/NATO (including France)/GCC is regime change in Syria. This goal has not changed,
Paris attacks notwithstanding. Turkey functions as a US/NATO vassal state, doing the west's bidding.
Sultan Erdogan's dreams of a neo-Ottoman empire may well end up turning Turkey in a smoldering
mass of rubble.
Lavrov's comments offered the clearest signals that Moscow views the downing as more than an
accidental mishap while Russia steps up its airstrikes in Syria to support the embattled
government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey and its Western allies have backed rebel groups seeking to topple Assad in Syria's nearly
five-year civil war. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, have raised worries about possible mishaps
between Russia's air campaign and a U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic
State.
... ... ...
"We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned
provocation," Lavrov said after discussions with Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Lavrov did not elaborate on Moscow's claims.
... ... ...
Moscow further alleged at Turkey was sheltering the Islamic State from Russian attacks. "A
stab in the back from the accomplices of terrorism," said Putin on Tuesday.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday warned that the "damage will be hard to
repair." Russian officials have raised possible responses such as a ban on Turkish airlines or
canceling a proposed gas pipeline between the two countries.
So far, however, Russia has not taken any steps other than to recommend Russian tourists not
visit Turkey. Russian tour operators have cancelled most of their packages to Turkish resorts,
the Interfax news service reported. More than 3 million tourists visited the popular vacation
destination from Russia last year.
Russia - knowing that this is really not about Turkey, but about push-back by the US against
growing Russian power and influence, both globally and in the Middle East region - could also
choose to respond in a venue where it has more of an advantage, for example in Ukraine, where it
could amp up its support for the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, perhaps by downing a
Ukrainian military plane, or more broadly, providing air cover to protect those regions. Russia
could also, less directly, provide aid to Kurdish rebels in both Syria and in Turkey itself who
are fighting against Turkish forces.
I'm sure there are plenty of other options available to Russia also to turn the screws against
both Turkey and NATO, without openly pushing buttons that could lead to a direct confrontation
with the US and its NATO fiction. Working in Russia's favor is that the US aside, the European
nations of NATO have no desire to be at war with Russia. There are clearly hotheads in the US
Congress, the Pentagon, and perhaps even within the neo-con-infested Obama administration, who
are pushing for just such a mad showdown. But in Europe, where the actual fighting would mostly
occur, and where memories are still strong of the destructive power of war, there is no taste for
such insanity. It could, in fact, have been a big error in the long run for the US to push Turkey
into such a deadly provocation, if it leads to more anti-American sentiment among the citizens of
such key NATO countries as France, Germany, Italy and Britain.
Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective,
and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).
"... Either way, Turkey seems to have tipped their hand, and that is probably VASTLY more important to how this plays out than the death of a pilot in an armed conflict. ..."
"... All Russia has to do is stay a few miles from the border and keep blowing shit up and killing assholes. ..."
"... Economics and finance is how this war is being fought. Syria is just the hot spot. Look for action on the banking, finance, trade, and economic front. It is coming. ..."
"... Stop all the chatter and simply as, Cui Bono? The answer... as always in deceptive operations like this - is the same. ..."
"... Erdogan set a fucked up precedent for world stability and the West hasn't heard the last of the rhetoric it used in defending his insane actions. Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace. -Barack Obama ..."
"... [stated after Turkey destroyed a Russian jet, which resulted in the death of at least one of the pilots, while the jet was conducting anti-terror operations in Syria against ISIS - admitted bombers of a Russian civilian airliner] ..."
"... Russia, Iran, Syria will prevail because they must prevail. There is no alternative for them. Putin is a very cautious man despite being displayed as hazardeur by western presstitute media. He knows exactly what he is doing and he will be doing it until the logical goal has been reached. For a psychopath like Erdogan, longing for Ottoman empire 2.0 ruled by a mixture of muslim brothers like himself and Turkey-style Wahabists, losing control over the airspace over Syria near the border to Turkey is absolutely inacceptable. By ordering to shoot down that SU-24 Erdogan made a big strategic miscalculation and simply accelerated his complete loss of control, i.e., what he fears most. ..."
"... For Russia it comes as a gift: It has now all reasons to set up a total no-fly zone over North Syria referring to today's incident. And no power in the world can prevent Russia from doing this. ..."
"... That F16 was on an intercept course, it wasn't patrolling up and down the border. That shooting was a deliberate act especially as it took place inside Syrian airspace. ..."
"... You really think Turkey did this without American neocon plotting via NATO via Turkey? All on their own? ..."
"... Apparently Russians are a big source of Tourist income for Turkey. And then, there is all that ISIS blood-oil flowing through Turkey which will now be stopped by Russian carpet bombing of ISIS tankers. ..."
"... Also its going to be awfully hard for Turkish planes to raid into Syria, what with the Russians waiting to mistakenly shoot them down and have local rebels shoot Turkish pilots. ..."
"... One thing I keep meaning to look into, before all my mentors and sources kick the bucket... and I can no longer kick the can, is what the level of Turkish involvement in the various disturbances in the Caucasus actually after the collapse of the Soviet Union. People write about Saudi Arabia's ideological ties, but in the rush to extract Caspian energy for the west, some of those projects took suspicious turns for the strategic benefit of Ankara. ..."
"... The F16 was loitering waiting for the chance to pounce. No way was this anything innocent and baloney about Turkey defending its air space is retard-spew. ..."
"... The preponderance of facts as we now have them would indicate in Russia's favor. ..."
"... They seem to indeed be trying to pull NATO in on Article 5. ..."
"... Mr Erdogan spoke of Turkey's rage at the decision to shoot down the F-4 Phantom on 22 June and described Syria as a clear and present threat . A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack, he said. ..."
The highlighted passage reads: "Disregarding these warnings, both planes, at an altitude of 19,000
feet, violated Turkish national airspace to a depth of 1.36 miles and 1.15 miles in length
for 17 seconds from 9:24:05 local time."
So, as
RT notes,
even if we buy Turkey's story (i.e. if we accept that Russia actually did violate Turkish airspace),
then it would appear that Ankara has something of an itchy trigger finger. That is, Turkey
was apparently willing to risk sparking a wider conflict between NATO and Russia over a 17 second
incursion.
But something doesn't sound right.
Journalists: Learn to do basic maths. Look at Turkey's statement to UN:
1.15 miles / 17 seconds x 60 x 60 = 243 miles/hour = 391 km/hour
In other words, as
Sputnik put it earlier this evening, "according to those numbers,
the Su-24 would have
had to be flying at stall speed."
The Su-24's max speed is 1,320 km/hour.
So if we assume the Su-24 was actually going much faster, was 17 seconds more like 5 seconds?
Or perhaps even less?
It's important not to forget the context here. Ankara is fiercly anti-Assad and in addition to
being generally displeased with Russia's efforts to support the regime, just four days ago, Turkey
summoned Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov over the alleged bombing of Turkish villages near the border.
"Turkey has asked Russia to 'immediately end its operation,'"
AFP reported, adding that "Ankara warned
bombing villages populated by the Turkmen minority
in Syria could lead to 'serious consequences.'"
Of course Russia wasn't just bombing Turkish civilians for the sheer hell of it. It's likely
Moscow was targeting the very same FSA-affiliated Alwiya al-Ashar militiamen who
shot and killed the parachuting Russian pilot earlier today.
In short, it looks like Ankara saw an opportunity to shoot down a Russian jet in retaliation for
strikes on Turkish rebel fighters who are operating alongside anti-Assad forces. Erdogan is essentially
gambling that Russia will not retailiate militarily against Turkey because doing so would open the
door for a direct confrontation with NATO.
Time will tell whether that gamble pays off or whether Moscow decides that the next time a Turkish
F-16 gets "lost" over Latakia, a little payback is in order.
Femme Fatale
You got it all wrong. That's not what happened at all. Erdogan told Putin: "the Israelis
wagged the Americans who wagged me, so what's a poor Turk to do?" >>
https://goo.gl/qazI3V
-.-'s picture
Physics are a bitch Erdogan.
TahoeBilly2012
That's some cheeze whiz shit right there, Turkey supports ISIS, so does France....bastards,
you kill your own people in cafes!!
Chuckster
Exactly...if you watch the Russians they are always slow to release information. It's like
they enjoy letting the rest of the world make asses out of themselves then they come forth with
powerful evidence. They have satellites so I expect to see some evidence of what they are saying
in the future. In the meantime paybacks are a bitch.
highandwired
Russian defense ministry has already released the satellite info:
In war, people die. Equipment is lost. It is fscking reality people. Maybe the pilot fscked
up. Maybe they crossed the border and thought it wouldn't matter. Maybe they didn't and just
got ambushed.
Either way, Turkey seems to have tipped their hand, and that is probably VASTLY more
important to how this plays out than the death of a pilot in an armed conflict. Or, to
quote Stalin, "One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic." Y'all won't be pity partying
for the next 1,000 dead Russian pilots.
All Russia has to do is stay a few miles from the border and keep blowing shit up and killing
assholes.
Economics and finance is how this war is being fought. Syria is just the "hot" spot. Look for
action on the banking, finance, trade, and economic front. It is coming.
Good thing Turkey doesn't need Russia for goods, services, parts, energy, food, and shit like
that.
Regards,
Cooter
J S Bach
Stop all the chatter and simply as, "Cui Bono?" The answer... as always in deceptive
operations like this - is the same.
Supernova Born
They'll be some chagrin in Western capitals the day China starts quoting all this right of
self-defense and defense of territory stuff when the next military ship intentionally cruises
right past a Chinese base on the Senkakus or Spratleys.
"You are within Chinese territorial waters. You have 17 seconds to depart."
Erdogan set a fucked up precedent for world stability and the West hasn't heard the last of
the rhetoric it used in defending his insane actions.
"Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace."
-Barack Obama
[stated after Turkey destroyed a Russian jet, which resulted in the death of at least one of
the pilots, while the jet was conducting anti-terror operations in Syria against ISIS -
admitted bombers of a Russian civilian airliner]
giovanni_f
No (I am unsure how such a US-centric crap even deserves the label "assessment").
Russia, Iran, Syria will prevail because they must prevail. There is no alternative for them.
Putin is a very cautious man despite being displayed as hazardeur by western presstitute
media. He knows exactly what he is doing and he will be doing it until the logical goal has
been reached. For a psychopath like Erdogan, longing for Ottoman empire 2.0 ruled by a mixture
of muslim brothers like himself and Turkey-style Wahabists, losing control over the airspace
over Syria near the border to Turkey is absolutely inacceptable. By ordering to shoot down
that SU-24 Erdogan made a big strategic miscalculation and simply accelerated his complete
loss of control, i.e., what he fears most.
For Russia it comes as a gift: It has now all reasons to set up a total no-fly zone over
North Syria referring to today's incident. And no power in the world can prevent Russia from
doing this.
The answer to "cui bono" is Russia but as in chess it was the enemy to make the gift.
Hope that helps for you amateur geopoliticians.
Wile-E-Coyote
That F16 was on an intercept course, it wasn't patrolling up and down the border. That
shooting was a deliberate act especially as it took place inside Syrian airspace. Now I
expect Russia to hit anything with a pulse in that area, your move Turkey, but be careful Xmas
is coming you could get a right stuffing.
an_indian
You really think Turkey did this without American neocon plotting via NATO via Turkey? All
on their own?
Apparently Russians are a big source of Tourist income for Turkey. And then, there is all that
ISIS blood-oil flowing through Turkey which will now be stopped by Russian carpet bombing of
ISIS tankers.
Look for more such Turkish villages to be bombed in future and some of those bombs/missiles
losing their way (like the cruise missile that supposedly landed in Iran) and landing on
Turkish soil.
Also its going to be awfully hard for Turkish planes to raid into Syria, what with the
Russians waiting to "mistakenly" shoot them down and have local rebels shoot Turkish pilots.
This is going to get really complicated real fast.
Urban Redneck
Perhaps nominally, but I think Turkey had the most, relatively, to lose. Petroleum is
somewhat fungible, and the current glut notwithstanding, a buyer generally be can found near
the current market price. The Turks, however, are traders and if a pipeline doesn't flow
through Turkey, their cut is eliminated. One thing I keep meaning to look into, before all
my mentors and sources kick the bucket... and I can no longer kick the can, is what the level
of Turkish involvement in the various disturbances in the Caucasus actually after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. People write about Saudi Arabia's ideological ties, but in the rush to
extract Caspian energy for the west, some of those projects took suspicious turns for the
strategic benefit of Ankara.
The F16 was loitering waiting for the chance to pounce. No way was this anything innocent
and baloney about "Turkey defending its air space" is retard-spew.
Most importantly they are not at war with each other so Turkish plane could have escorted them
out but NOPE.
Turkey's airspace was violated 114 times in one year by Greek, Israeli, and Italian
aircraft They somehow avoided shooting any down. "Air space violations are incidents that
happen almost every day, and are resolved in a matter of minutes within international law,"
the Turkish General Staff said in a statement. Six airplanes violated Turkish airspace last
week alone, the General Staff said, of which none were shot down and left Turkey's airspace
after they were warned by Turkish personnel.
A violation of one to two kilometers is accepted as "natural" given the speed of aircraft,
the statement said. This year's violations of Turkish airspace lasted between 20 seconds and
nine minutes, which showed "airspace violations can be resolved by warning and interceptions,"
the statement said."
Temperatures in Ukraine where most homes rely on piped gas for
central heating were below freezing Wednesday morning.
SmittyinLA
Russia won't retaliate against Turkey, they'll target Erdogan and his donors-personally
like Israelis, behind the jihad are businessmen with assets and interests-that they're gonna
lose shortly.
Financial punishment is coming for "friends of Erdogon"
Putin will make it personal, Russia doesn't do "calm", they do "stoic".
css1971
Sampling period. The turkish account of 17 seconds could be related to the sampling period
on their monitoring system, but it looks like a large overestimation.
Now, if you look at the Russian realtime tracking, they clipped the border maybe, but didn't
enter Turkish airspace :
So it comes down to how accurate are the monitoring systems whether the plane entered Turkish
airspace or not. He said, she said.
There's a different question though, even if you take the Turkish explanation. As a NATO
member, do you shoot down planes :
1. That has entered your airspace literally for seconds and has clearly exited by the time you
shoot it down that part is quite clear.
2. From a country which had an agreement in place ahead of time explicitly to prevent exactly
this situation.
No, you don't. Unless you are explicitly and deliberately and cynically attempting to escalate
the situation.
lakecity55
The preponderance of facts as we now have them would indicate in Russia's favor.
At the least, it would have taken more time for the Turks to set up the shot than any time the
bomber may have been in their airspace. A needless provocation on Turkey's part. The math is
very telling; at the claimed speed, the bomber would indeed be flying too slow. You can look
the bomber's specs up on the intertubes.
They seem to indeed be trying to pull NATO in on Article 5.
jughead
Mr Erdogan spoke of Turkey's "rage" at the decision to shoot down the F-4 Phantom on 22
June and described Syria as a "clear and present threat". "A short-term border violation
can never be a pretext for an attack," he said.
Definitely a speed trap waiting, got perfect video footage of the event too. hmmmmm.
Turkey was protecting their RADICAL muslim brothers they do NOT want bombed. That is what
happened and now the want NATO to intervene on their behalf. Fuck them to hell and back let
Putin bomb their radical muslim asses too.
Russian President Vladimir Putin approved deploying S-400 air defense system at the Russian airbase
in Hmeimim in Lattakia, the Kremlin announced on Wednesday.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
the President approved the Russian Defense Ministry's proposal to deploy the S-400 system, Russia's
most advanced anti-aircraft defense system.
Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a Defense Ministry meeting that S-400
will be deployed in Hmeimim airbase after a Russian Su-24 aircraft was downed yesterday by an air-to-air
missile launched from a Turkish F-16 fighter jet when it was returning from an anti-terrorist mission
in the northern countryside of Lattakia.
The S-400 is employed to ensure air defense using long- and medium-range missiles that can hit
aerial targets at ranges up to 400 kilometers. The S-400 is capable of hitting tactical and strategic
aircraft as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. The system includes a set of radars, missile launchers
and command posts, and is operated solely by the Russian military.
Turkish tourism representatives have voiced concern after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov advised Russians on Nov. 24 not to visit Turkey, after Turkey downed of a Russian plane on
the Syrian frontier.
Lavrov also said the threat of terrorism in Turkey was no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack
brought down a Russian passenger plane last month.
Russia's tourism agency then recommended the suspension of package holiday sales to Turkey.
"This is no good. We cannot lose the Russian market, which is the second largest source of
Turkey's tourism sector. We have already lost over 800,000 Russian tourists over this year due to
economic woes in [Russia], and had to make significant cuts in hotel prices to overcome our
losses in addition to other concessions. Despite this, we still cannot close the gap," said the
head of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TUROFED), Osman Ayık.
... ... ...
While 3.3 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2014, Turkey saw a decrease of
approximately 25 percent in the number of tourists from Russia and its neighbors over this year.
However, Turkey did become more attractive for Russian tourists after Moscow suspended flights to
Egypt.
Turkey's tourism revenues declined 4.4 percent, reaching only $12.29 billion in the third
quarter, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) said on Oct. 30, amid security concerns and a
decrease in the number of Russian tourists visiting the country.
That Turkish F16 fighter pilot alone could not take a decision about the attack. Especially in the border area.
Usually every opportunity is used to resolve the situation peacefully. The pilot of a Turkish fighter definitely got the order to land from very high command. But it is unlikely Turkey independently decided about the attack on Russian military aircraft. Most likely, the approval of this provocation was given on the Potomac river. Question: for what?
The simple answer is to put pressure on Russia to force it to withdraw from Syria. But the
authors of this provocation here clearly miscalculated. First, in the near future we should expect increase of air strikes on sites under the control of the
ISIS.
Secondly, bombers in Syria will no longer fly without cover of fighters, and every attempt of attack on our aircraft will get an adequate response. And finally, third, because Russia is the only invited to the military presence and aid the country's only legitimate government of Syria, now our air defenses and will be hard to clap each attempt any incursion into Syrian airspace by forces that we ourselves define as hostile.
This incident has revealed what the real sides are in the Syrian civil war: who is fighting
whom, and for what. The Russian plane crashed into Syrian territory and one of the pilots was
shot from the skies as he parachuted: this barbaric act was captured on video by the rebels, who
are being reported as affiliated with the Turkmen "10th Brigade." This is just for public
consumption, however: in reality, the area is controlled by an alliance of rebel forces dominated
by the al-Nusra Front, which is the official Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda. The jihadists took
control of the area in March of this year, and it has been the focal point of recent fighting
between al-Qaeda and Syrian government forces backed by the Russian air offensive.
... ... ...
Putin's accusation that this is "a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" is
absolutely correct – but he isn't just talking about Turkey, whose Islamist regime has been
canoodling with the terrorists since the start of the Syria civil war. Washington and its allies,
including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar – who have been directly aiding ISIS as well as the
"moderate" head-choppers – is indirectly responsible for the downing the Russian plane –
including a barbaric attack on the rescue helicopter, which was downed by a US-provided TOW
missile launcher.
... ... ...
it's the Americans who want a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis, not Putin....
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are
sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out
loud.
I've written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying
the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the
Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J.
Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000),
my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here
"... Why would the Turks do that? Because Russia is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, apparently with considerable success, and Turkey has been extremely persistent in their demands that he be removed. Al-Assad is seen by Turkey, rightly or wrongly, as a supporter of Kurdish militancy along the long and porous border with Turkey. This explains why Ankara has been lukewarm in its support of the campaign against ISIS, tacitly cooperating with the terrorist group, while at the same time focusing its own military effort against the Kurds, which it sees as an existential threat directed against the unity of the Turkish Republic. ..."
"... Would Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan do something so reckless? ..."
"... if his objective was to derail the creation of a unified front against terrorist and rebel groups in Syria and thereby weaken the regime in Damascus, he might just believe that the risk was worth the potential gain. ..."
Why would the Turks do that? Because Russia is supporting Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, apparently with considerable success, and Turkey has been extremely persistent in their
demands that he be removed. Al-Assad is seen by Turkey, rightly or wrongly, as a supporter of
Kurdish militancy along the long and porous border with Turkey. This explains why Ankara has been
lukewarm in its support of the campaign against ISIS, tacitly cooperating with the terrorist
group, while at the same time focusing its own military effort against the Kurds, which it sees
as an existential threat directed against the unity of the Turkish Republic.
Would Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan do something so reckless? Only he knows for
sure, but if his objective was to derail the creation of a unified front against terrorist
and rebel groups in Syria and thereby weaken the regime in Damascus, he might just believe that
the risk was worth the potential gain.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National
Interest.
"... Turkey's international airports have also been busy. Many, if not most, of the estimated 15,000-20,000 foreign fighters to have joined the Islamic State (Isis) have first flown into Istanbul or Adana, or arrived by ferry along its Mediterranean coast. ..."
"... The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis. Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers. ..."
"... Lavrov, speaking to reporters in the southern Russian city of Sochi, advised Russians not to visit Turkey and said the threat of terrorism there was the no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month. ..."
"... One of the possible retaliatory measures Russia could take would be ban flights to Turkey, as Moscow did with Egypt after the Metrojet bombing over Sinai last month, writes Shaun Walker. There are dozens of flights a day between the two countries, so such a move would undoubtedly seriously affect trade and tourism. ..."
Turkey's international airports have also been busy. Many, if not most, of the estimated 15,000-20,000 foreign fighters
to have joined the Islamic State (Isis) have first flown
into Istanbul or Adana, or arrived by ferry along its Mediterranean coast.
The influx has offered fertile ground
to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a Russian fighter on Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis.
Vladimir Putin's reference to Turkey as "accomplices of terrorists" is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara's backers.
From midway through 2012, when jihadis started to travel to Syria, their presence was apparent at all points of
the journey to the border. At Istanbul airport, in the southern cities of Hatay and Gaziantep – both of which were staging
points – and in the border villages.
Foreigners on their way to fight remained fixtures on these routes until late in 2014 when, after continued pressure from
the EU states and the US, coordinated efforts were made to turn them back.
Lavrov cancels planned visit to Turkey
No great surprise this, but Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has cancelled a planned visit to Turkey.
Lavrov was due to visit Ankara on Wednesday for bilateral talks. Turkish officials had insited it would go ahead as planned.
Lavrov, speaking to reporters in the southern Russian city of Sochi, advised Russians not to visit Turkey and said the
threat of terrorism there was the no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month.
One of the possible retaliatory measures Russia could take would be ban flights to Turkey, as Moscow did with Egypt
after the Metrojet bombing over Sinai last month, writes Shaun Walker. There are dozens of flights a day between the two countries,
so such a move would undoubtedly seriously affect trade and tourism.
(That's it from me. I'm handling the live blog over to Mark Tran).
Shaun Walker
...Writing on Twitter Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament's international relations committee, said: "Ankara
clearly did not weigh the consequences of its hostile acts for Turkey's interests and economy. The consequences will be very serious."
Here's video of Putin's response to the downing of the Russia jet:
"The loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can't describe it in any other way."
"Our aircraft was downed over the territory of Syria, using air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16. It fell on the Syrian
territory 4km from Turkey."
"Neither our pilots nor our jet threatened the territory of Turkey."
"Today's tragic event will have significant consequences, including for Russia-Turkish relations ... Instead of immediately
getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this
incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours."
"Do they want to make Nato serve ISIS? ... We hope that the international community will find the strength to come together
and fight against the common evil."
Summary
... ... ...
Russia's president Vladimir Putin has warned Turkey of 'serious consequences' after a Russia fighter jet was shot down close
to Turkey's border with Syria. Putin described the incident as a "stab in the back" and accused Turkey of siding with Islamic
State militants in Syria.
"... "The endgame is at hand, and only the most desperate measures can hope to prevent Russia and Syria from finally securing Syria's borders. Turkey's provocation is just such a measure," he emphasizes. ..."
"... "As in the game of chess, a player often seeks to provoke their opponent into a series of moves," Cartalucci notes. ..."
Geopolitical analyst Tony Cartalucci draws attention to the fact that over the recent weeks Russian
and Syrian forces have been steadily gaining ground in Syria, retaking territory from ISIL and
al-Qaeda.
"The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has even begun approaching the Euphrates River east of
Aleppo, which would effectively cut off ISIS [ISIL] from its supply lines leading out of Turkish
territory," Cartalucci narrates in his latest article for New Eastern Outlook.
He explains that from there, Syrian troops with Russian air support would move north, into the
very "safe zone" which Washington and Ankara have planned to carve out of Syria. Cartalucci points
out that the "safe zone" includes a northern Syria area stretching from Jarabulus to Afrin and
Al-Dana.
If Syrian troops establish their control over this zone, the Western plan of taking
and holding the territory (with the prospect of further Balkanization of the region) would fall
apart at the seams. In light of this, the regime change project, harbored by the West since the
very beginning of the Syrian unrest, would be "indefinitely suspended," Cartalucci underscores.
"The endgame is at hand, and only the most desperate measures can hope to prevent Russia and
Syria from finally securing Syria's borders. Turkey's provocation is just such a measure," he
emphasizes.
"As in the game of chess, a player often seeks to provoke their opponent into a series of moves,"
Cartalucci notes.
According to the geopolitical analyst, Russia's best choice now is to continue winning this
war, eventually taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor. By fortifying this area Russian and Syrian
forces would prevent NATO from invading Syria, at the same time cutting off the ISIL and al-Nusra
Front supply route from Turkey.
Russo-Syrian victory would have far-reaching consequences for the region as a whole. "With
Syria secured, an alternative arc of influence will exist within the Middle East, one that will
inevitably work against Saudi and other Persian Gulf regimes' efforts in Yemen, and in a wider
sense, begin the irreversible eviction of Western hegemony from the region," Cartalucci
underscores.
"... "We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don't know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours." ..."
A government official said: "In line with the military rules of engagement, the Turkish authorities
repeatedly warned an unidentified aircraft that they were 15km or less away from the border. The
aircraft didn't heed the warnings and proceeded to fly over Turkey. The Turkish air forces responded
by downing the aircraft.
More on this topic: Turkey caught between aiding Turkmen and economic dependence on Russia
"This isn't an action against any specific country: our F-16s took necessary steps to defend Turkey's
sovereign territory."
The Turkish UN ambassador, Halit Cevik, told the UN Security Council in a letter that two planes
had flow a mile into Turkey for 17 seconds. "Following the violation, plane 1 left Turkish national
airspace. Plane 2 was fired at while in Turkish national airspace by Turkish F-16s performing air
combat patrolling in the area," he wrote.
... ... ...
Putin said there would be "serious consequences" for Russia-Turkish relations.
"We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don't know who was interested in what
happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as
we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident,
as if we shot down their plane and not they ours."
Schadenfreude ecstasies of UK conservatives. They are glad that Turkey shot down Russian
bomber. Not very surprising as Cameron wanted to ally with ISIS against President Asad forces just
two years ago. Comments were not allowed for this article.
Notable quotes:
"... Turks would certainly resist any attempt by Russia to launch retaliatory action against the Turkmen, who yesterday claimed they had shot dead the two Russian pilots as they attempted to parachute to safety, although this was later denied by Turkish officials. ..."
"... Turkey funds a number of Turkmen militias in northern Syria that are fighting to overthrow the Assad regime. ..."
"... Mr Putin has badly misread Turkey's determination to defend its interests and, by so doing, has further complicated the tangled web of alliances that underpin the Syrian conflict. ..."
The challenge now, for Nato as well as for Russia, is to prevent tensions between Moscow and
Ankara from spiralling out of control. Turkey's relations with Russia are already strained
following Moscow's Syrian intervention, with the Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan warning that
Turkey could cut its lucrative energy ties with Russia. The Turks would certainly resist any
attempt by Russia to launch retaliatory action against the Turkmen, who yesterday claimed they
had shot dead the two Russian pilots as they attempted to parachute to safety, although this was
later denied by Turkish officials.
Turkey funds a number of Turkmen militias in northern Syria that are fighting to overthrow
the Assad regime. It is unlikely the Turks would tolerate Russian attacks on their ethnic
allies, which could easily lead to direct military confrontation between Russia and Turkey, with
all the implications that would have for the Nato alliance, which would then be obliged to defend
Turkey's borders.
Mr Putin has badly misread Turkey's determination to defend its interests and, by so
doing, has further complicated the tangled web of alliances that underpin the Syrian conflict.
He has also made life more difficult for David Cameron, who will tomorrow tell the Commons about
his own plans for Britain to participate in the air war against Isil. Like Mr Putin, Mr Cameron
says he wants to launch air strikes against Isil in Syria. But, after yesterday, Mr Cameron can
be in no doubt that, however he views Mr Putin's role in the conflict, it will most certainly not
be that of an ally.
"... However, it is wrong to conclude that the Turkish demarche is a mere tactical ploy. There is also the backdrop of the robust Turkish push for establishing a 'no-fly zone' in northern Syria to be kept in view. The demarche is linked to a live broadcast by Erdogan on Wednesday where he underscored that the creation of 'no-fly' and 'safe' zones is crucial to resolving the Syrian crisis… ..."
"... …Put differently, the race for Aleppo has begun. The point is, the Turkish-American operation comes at a time when with Russian air cover, Syrian government forces are struggling to retake Aleppo, which has been under the control of opposition groups for two years. To be sure, the Turkish demarche on Friday threatening Russia with "serious consequences" falls in perspective. ..."
"... The US role in this daring Turkish enterprise remains hidden from view. Senior US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, are credited with privately expressing views supportive of the Turkish proposal on free-trade zone, and leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has openly backed the idea, but President Barack Obama has so far preferred to stand in the shade with an ambivalence that appeared to weigh against the 'no-fly zone'… ..."
"... Russia's best bet is to simply continue winning the war. Taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor and fortifying it against NATO incursions while cutting off ISIS and other terrorist factions deeper within Syria would be perhaps the worst of all possible retaliations. ..."
"... Such a provocation is exactly what the West would do if it were losing in Syria. And Putin doesn't have to prove anything to the Russian people. ..."
"... Erdogan is feeling especially froggy. He says he will establish a humanitarian safe zone between Jarabulus and the Mediterranean with his allies. God help us all. ..."
"... Turkey's territorial integrity cannot include 5 miles of Syrian territory to which it helps itself as a security zone. And Stoltenberg is a tool who should never be taken seriously. He would institute a NATO tax and pour the money directly into arms purchases if he could – he is a dream leader if you are a defense contractor. ..."
"... At the WH news today ….Obama was his usual watermouth in chief clown self…..He kept referring to Hollande as "Francois"….as if they were frat boys smokin' a joint and swillin' beer… ..."
"... But he still is not thru running his unhelpful and provocative trap…He then tries to marginalize the Russkie anti ISIS coalition effort…and condescendingly chides and berates Putin for not toeing the line that Obama hasn't even thought out as to what or where to tow to begin with!!! Then Hollande chimes in with the usual 'Assad must go' mantra…. ..."
"... The NATO freaks have to keep a steadying hand on Francois, lest he wander off the reservation… ..."
"... War is continuation of politics by other means. Diplomatic successes of Russia created backlash and Russia was backstabbed. So one way to look at this incident is that it was a Russian sacrifice on the altar of victory over ISIS. Shooting down of a Russian plane is to be expected in such a war and the fact that it happened just now and the shooter was Turkish F14 changed very little. But if this was a provocation, then timing was perfect. ..."
"... This hysterical gesture also might reflect existence of a split in Turkish leadership and effort of one wing of government to enforce its political plans on the nation. The part who are willing to sacrifice economic ties with Russia to achieve their political goals in Syria Their immediate goal is that the pro-Turkish forces not government forces liberate Rakka (Al-Raqqah) ..."
"... I would add that breaking economic ties with Turkey will hurt Russia no less then Turkey. Closure of Dardanelles by turkey also will not help Russian efforts to defeat ISIS. ..."
"... In any case the partition Syria along religious and ethnic lines was planned from the very beginning by the very same players who are behind this incident. Nobody has any doubts that Turkey was one of the main instigators of Syrian civil war and along with Qatar and Saudis served and still serves the financial hub for the armed opposition and first of all salafists. The fact salafists fighters from the rest of the world travel to Syria via Turkey is an open secret. ..."
A very interesting, appropriate and very good response.
Sultan Erdogan has been served notice.
I hope he's bricking it. Let him stew.
It makes sense that Putin should treat differentiate Turkey from western states. It also help
him to present NATO with a stark choice and not much chance to try and claim the middle ground.
Either way, unless Turkey gets categorical support from the NATO meeting and not the usual meaningless
waffle, he's lost support from both NATO & Russia. Not a good place to be in.
et Al, November 24, 2015 at 12:55 pm
via a comment by GoraDiva on the Moon of Alabama post above:
he cloud of uncertainty is lifting about any new directions of Turkish policies on Syria following
the parliamentary elections three weeks ago, which led to a great political consolidation by President
Recep Erdogan. The policies will run in the old directions – regime change in Syria – as per Erdogan's
compass, which was set four years ago, but they will be vastly more visible in the 'kinetics'…
…An easy explanation is possible that Turkey decided to set the agenda for Lavrov's talks on
coming Wednesday that would devolve upon the parameters of the Russian operations in northern
Syria that will not cross Turkey's 'red lines'. The exceptionally strong words used by Turkish
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu regarding the "bloody and barbarian" Syrian regime leaves very
little to the imagination as to how Erdogan views the prospect of Assad's future role. The last
known Turkish stance is that Erdogan can tolerate Assad for a maximum period of six months during
the transition.
However, it is wrong to conclude that the Turkish demarche is a mere tactical ploy. There
is also the backdrop of the robust Turkish push for establishing a 'no-fly zone' in northern Syria
to be kept in view. The demarche is linked to a live broadcast by Erdogan on Wednesday where he
underscored that the creation of 'no-fly' and 'safe' zones is crucial to resolving the Syrian
crisis…
…Put differently, the race for Aleppo has begun. The point is, the Turkish-American operation
comes at a time when with Russian air cover, Syrian government forces are struggling to retake
Aleppo, which has been under the control of opposition groups for two years. To be sure, the Turkish
demarche on Friday threatening Russia with "serious consequences" falls in perspective.
The US role in this daring Turkish enterprise remains hidden from view. Senior US officials,
including Secretary of State John Kerry, are credited with privately expressing views supportive
of the Turkish proposal on free-trade zone, and leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton has openly backed the idea, but President Barack Obama has so far preferred to stand in
the shade with an ambivalence that appeared to weigh against the 'no-fly zone'…
####
A good piece by M.K. Bhadrakumar but I wouldn't call it anything like a toe hold yet. While
the Americans haven't expressed open support for Turkey, they haven't either condemned Turkey.,
so I will modify my earlier and a bit rash opinion that the US has hung Turkey out to dry. On
reflection, it seems far more reasonable that as usual, if it works out, the US will try to claim
some sort of credit, but if it all goes Pete Tong, Turkey is all on its lonesome. NATO is being
kept out of this one because the US certainly wouldn't get the unanimity need from all NATO members
for such a plan, though I'm sure the Brits and others were informed unofficially.
Russia's best bet is to simply continue winning the war. Taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor
and fortifying it against NATO incursions while cutting off ISIS and other terrorist factions
deeper within Syria would be perhaps the worst of all possible retaliations.
My "Russian intuition" tells me that this is what Russia will do. Such a provocation is
exactly what the West would do if it were losing in Syria. And Putin doesn't have to prove anything
to the Russian people.
Cortes, November 24, 2015 at 1:58 pm
The Twisted Genius, a regular poster on the "Turcopolier " blog Sic Semper Tyrannis of Col.
Pat Lang,
After the NATO meeting, Jens Stoltenberg stated, "we stand in solidarity with Turkey and support
its territorial integrity." After this and the statements of supplication out of Washington this
morning, Erdogan is feeling especially froggy. He says he will establish a humanitarian safe
zone between Jarabulus and the Mediterranean with his allies. God help us all.
Here's a little insight into Belgium…that may surprise you….
This is the fourth day that the country has been under a virtual martial law lockdown…
Brussels is in Belgium……NATO can't even secure-cover- its home base ass!!!!!!!
marknesop, November 24, 2015 at 3:04 pm
Turkey's territorial integrity cannot include 5 miles of Syrian territory to which it helps
itself as a security zone. And Stoltenberg is a tool who should never be taken seriously. He would
institute a NATO tax and pour the money directly into arms purchases if he could – he is a dream
leader if you are a defense contractor.
Northern Star, November 24, 2015 at 2:50 pm
At the WH news today ….Obama was his usual watermouth in chief clown self…..He kept referring
to Hollande as "Francois"….as if they were frat boys smokin' a joint and swillin' beer…
It should have been on this grim occasion "Mr. President"..Not "Francois….Then he continues
to flippantly refer to The Russian leader as "Putin"…not President Putin…..How fucking smart (wise)
is it to antagonize PRESIDENT Putin…in ANY way….especially when on a global forum addressing billions
at a time of imminent potential crisis…AKA WW3.
But he still is not thru running his unhelpful and provocative trap…He then tries to marginalize
the Russkie anti ISIS coalition effort…and condescendingly chides and berates Putin for not toeing
the line that Obama hasn't even thought out as to what or where to tow to begin with!!! Then Hollande
chimes in with the usual 'Assad must go' mantra….
marknesop, November 24, 2015 at 3:12 pm
The NATO freaks have to keep a steadying hand on Francois, lest he wander off the reservation….
likbez, November 24, 2015 at 6:10 pm
Hotheads want immediate Russian reaction now. But it will be better if Russians behaved like
in well known Russian proverb " mount the horse very slowly and then ride really fast, "
It might be prudent to ignore this incident for now. Here is approximate version of opinion
of one Russian analyst about the situation
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2YtDQhpkJI
)
War is continuation of politics by other means. Diplomatic successes of Russia created backlash
and Russia was backstabbed. So one way to look at this incident is that it was a Russian sacrifice
on the altar of victory over ISIS. Shooting down of a Russian plane is to be expected in such
a war and the fact that it happened just now and the shooter was Turkish F14 changed very little.
But if this was a provocation, then timing was perfect. Relocation US F15 interceptors in the
light of this incident looks now strangely well-timed preemptive move. Let's assume that this
was accidental "perfect timing" of "our American partners" like Putin like to say.
In case of open democratic elections Assad will win and that's why the game "Assad must go"
is played. Turkey tried to force her own plan of settlement. And this incident might well be a
part of political game of the most radically pro-Islamist part of Turkish leadership. This hysterical
gesture also might reflect existence of a split in Turkish leadership and effort of one wing of
government to enforce its political plans on the nation. The part who are willing to sacrifice
economic ties with Russia to achieve their political goals in Syria Their immediate goal is that
the pro-Turkish forces not government forces liberate Rakka (Al-Raqqah)
I would add that breaking economic ties with Turkey will hurt Russia no less then Turkey. Closure
of Dardanelles by turkey also will not help Russian efforts to defeat ISIS.
In any case the partition Syria along religious and ethnic lines was planned from the very
beginning by the very same players who are behind this incident. Nobody has any doubts that Turkey
was one of the main instigators of Syrian civil war and along with Qatar and Saudis served and
still serves the financial hub for the armed opposition and first of all salafists. The fact salafists fighters from the rest of the world travel to Syria via Turkey is an open secret.
As Wikipedia notes:
The Syrian opposition, represented by the Syrian National Coalition, receives financial,
logistical, political and in some cases military support from major Sunni states in the Middle
East allied with the U.S., most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.
…The Salafist groups are partially supported by Turkey, while the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant received support from several non-state groups and organizations from across
the Muslim World.
This incident also changes nothing in this set of facts. So continuing to work against the
plan to partition Syria and "Assad must go" gambit which includes the creation of buffer zone
on the border with Turkey probably is the best option Russians have right now. Like French used
to say "revenge is a dish that best served cold".
Turkey and Erdogan will be on the same place the next year too, And probably two years from
now too. When there will be much less, if any, Russian tourists in Turkey. And Kurds will exist
in the exact the same number and with exactly the same political goals. Fragmentation and internal
squabbles within Turkish leadership also will exist in foreseeable future. So future might presents
more options for the meaningful reaction then exist today. Loss of the face in this case (and
Turkey itself) are much less important then the winning over ISIS.
"... Putin said Russia respects the regional interests of other nations, but warned the atrocity committed by Turkey would not go without an answer. Before Putin's statements came out, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Turkish army's downing of the Russian plane over Syria is "a very serious incident." ..."
Sochi, SANA – Russian President Vladimir Putin said the downing of the Russian aircraft over Syria
is a stab in the back delivered by the forces backing terrorism.
"This incident stands out against
the usual fight against terrorism," said Putin during a meeting with King of Jordan Abdullah II in
the Russian city of Sochi.
"Our troops are fighting heroically against terrorists, risking their lives. But the loss we suffered
today came from a stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists," he added.
Putin said the plane was hit by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish jet and crashed in
the Syrian territory four kilometers from the border with Turkey, stressing that the Russian plane
was flying at an altitude of 6000 meters about a kilometer from the Turkish border.
He stressed that the plane and pilots posed no threat to Turkey as they were carrying out a mission
against ISIS in mountainous areas targeting terrorists, most of whom came from Russia.
"ISIS has big money, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, from selling oil. In addition
they are protected by the military of an entire nation. One can understand why they are acting so
boldly and blatantly. Why they kill people in such atrocious ways. Why they commit terrorist acts
across the world, including in the heart of Europe," the Russian President said.
The downing of the Russian warplane happened despite Russia signing an agreement with the US to
prevent such incidents in Syria, Putin stressed. Turkey claims to be part of the US-led coalition
fighting against ISIS in Syria, he added.
The incident will have grave consequences for Russia's relations with Turkey, Putin warned.
"We have always treated Turkey as not only a close neighbor, but also as a friendly nation," he
said. "I don't know who has an interest in what happened today, but we certainly don't."
Putin said Russia respects the regional interests of other nations, but warned the atrocity committed
by Turkey would not go without an answer. Before Putin's statements came out, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Turkish army's downing
of the Russian plane over Syria is "a very serious incident."
Peskov told reporters in a statement that Russia has confirmed information showing that the aircraft
was all the time flying within the borders of Syria, adding that this was registered by electronic
monitoring means
Asked about any possible consequences the incident might have on the Russian-Turkish relations,
Peskov said it was too early to draw conclusions until the whole situation is clear.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it has summoned the Turkish military attaché
in Moscow over the incident.
Earlier, the Ministry said a Russian Su-24 fighter jet had been shot down in Lattakia province.
The Ministry confirmed that the plane hadn't violated Turkish airspace and was flying at an altitude
of 6,000 meters.
The pilots managed to eject from the downed jet, the ministry said, adding that their fate is
still unknown.
Lavrov cancels Turkey visit over downing of Russian
military jet
In a relevant context, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov canceled his visit to Turkey, due
on Wednesday, after a Russian Su-24 jet was downed within the Syrian airspaces by a Turkish air force.
"It's necessary to emphasize that the terror threats have been aggravated and that's true even
if we don't take into account what happened today," Lavrov said, adding "We estimate the threats
to be no less than in Egypt.
The minister also pointed out the increasing level of the terror threat in Turkey which is "not
lower than in Egypt, recommending Russians to refrain from visiting Turkey.
Looks like it was Turkish way to enforce no fly zone over border villages... Like was initial
US-Turkish plan. But now its a different game...
Notable quotes:
"... And so, the NYT continues its stenography for the Neocons, by refusing to report that whether the Russian jet actually violated Turkish airspace is in dispute. Even CNN has presented both possibilities. ..."
"... So, Turkey is attacking and oppressing Kurds, won't attack ISIS, seems to be provoking Russia, acts as a middle-man for ISIS oil revenues, is imposing increasingly intolerant religious laws, threatens Israel, and allows thousands of refugees to stream into Europe. ..."
"... Erdogan is playing a dangerous game, he's essentially banking on NATO to come to his aid if Russia retaliates ..."
"... The Syrian crisis started when Turkey, with the backing of Saudi, tried to get rid of Assad. It backfired and created a refugee crisis. Then one day, suddenly, all of the refugees decided to leave for Europe. The question is - how did the refugees take this decision on their own? It was Turkey's secret plan to bring back the glory of the Ottoman empire to Europe. Note that all the terrorists from UK, Australia and other countries who joined ISIS first went to Turkey. Turkey, backed by Saudi, has been supporting ISIS. Turkey has created this mess and its a pity that Angela Merkel does not understand! ..."
"... In war, truth is the first casualty. The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must. Not much has changed since ancient times, just more destructive technology. ..."
Mr. Putin, clearly angry, responded that the Russian jet had never violated Turkish airspace and
was shot down over Syria. Speaking in Sochi, he called the downing of the plane a "stab in the back
delivered by the accomplices of terrorists," warning that it would have "serious consequences for
Russian-Turkish relations."
Mr. Putin said that instead of "immediately making the necessary contact with us, the Turkish
side turned to their partners in NATO for talks on this incident. It's as if we shot down the
Turkish plane and not they, ours. Do they want to put NATO at the service of the Islamic State?"
... ... ...
What may make matters worse is that those same tribesmen said they shot both Russian pilots as
they floated to earth in their parachutes, having apparently ejected safely after the plane was hit
by air-to-air missiles. The Russian minister of defense said that the navigator of the warplane is
alive and has been rescued by Syrian and Russian special forces, but that the pilot was killed by
ground fire.
... ... ...
Russia's retaliation so far has been largely symbolic. Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov canceled
a Wednesday visit to Turkey, and a large Russian tour operator, Natalie Tours, announced it was
suspending sales to Turkey. Russians accounted for 12 percent of all tourists to Turkey last year.
The two countries are also significant trade partners. But "Russia-Turkey relations will drop below
zero," Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trends Studies, said on the state-run
Rossiya 24 cable news channel.
David, Brisbane, Australia 5 hours ago
Turks are lying. According to the tracks they published the downed plane crossed a sliver
of Turkish territory no more than 3 km wide. That should take a slowly flying jet less than 15
seconds, nowhere near 5 min the Turks claim it took them to issue 10 warnings. That was a
premeditated provocation by the Turks, they were waiting for that plane. It is hard to believe
that they would go for such major escalation without getting a go-ahead from US/NATO first.
Peisinoe, New York 4 hours ago
Excuse me NYT - but Turkey is not 'The West'.
It is a country that aligns itself with Wahabism-oriented nations that support and finance
terrorism (ie Saudi Arabia).
Lets keep things clear: We cannot fight ISIS by allying ourselves with countries which support
it.
It is about time the US stops selling itself for Saudi money - doesn't matter on which side
of the aisle you're from - that is plain and simple corruption - corruption of values, of
morality, of money, of power...
Jayne Cullen, Anytown, USA
"Turkish fighter jets on patrol near the Syrian border shot down a Russian warplane
on Tuesday after it violated Turkey's airspace..."
And so, the NYT continues its stenography for the Neocons, by refusing to report that
whether the Russian jet actually violated Turkish airspace is in dispute. Even CNN has
presented both possibilities.
Brian, Toronto
So, Turkey is attacking and oppressing Kurds, won't attack ISIS, seems to be provoking
Russia, acts as a middle-man for ISIS oil revenues, is imposing increasingly intolerant
religious laws, threatens Israel, and allows thousands of refugees to stream into Europe.
What is the process for kicking someone out of NATO?
Ajatha Shatru,
Erdogan is playing a dangerous game, he's essentially banking on NATO to come to his
aid if Russia retaliates.
If Russia doesn't retaliate, Putin will loose face in Arab world and Erdogan will be
crowned the modern age Saladin.
Western Europe knows Erdogan controls the refugee tap and his leverage is that tens of
thousands of refugees will flood into Europe if they don't back him up against Russia.
Putin cares about his macho and decisive image and to maintain it there will be Russian war
answer to this downing.
America and NATO needs to call Turkey's bluff and let it face Russian music alone or we are
heading towards world war III.
Aay, Sydney
The Syrian crisis started when Turkey, with the backing of Saudi, tried to get rid of
Assad. It backfired and created a refugee crisis. Then one day, suddenly, all of the refugees
decided to leave for Europe. The question is - how did the refugees take this decision on
their own? It was Turkey's secret plan to bring back the glory of the Ottoman empire to
Europe. Note that all the terrorists from UK, Australia and other countries who joined ISIS
first went to Turkey. Turkey, backed by Saudi, has been supporting ISIS. Turkey has created
this mess and its a pity that Angela Merkel does not understand!
Dan O'Brien, Massachusetts
In war, truth is the first casualty. The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what
they must. Not much has changed since ancient times, just more destructive technology.
"... Now I believe that the jet was in the Syrian airspace. It is not difficult to figure out that is purposeful action/plan by NATO and their faithful executioner Turkey. The plan might be to shut down Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian Navy. ..."
"... "There were three villages left to us from Hassa. Others were Teyek, Ekbez, Beylan, the boroughs of skenderun, the township of Reyhaniye, the Antakya district, the Ordu district, the Bay r, Bucak and Hazine townships, a major portion of the Kilis borough, the Elbeyli and Turkmen districts south of Çobanbey-Cerablus region of Antep… This is all Turkish soil that constitutes integrity with the motherland…" ..."
"... This then was not legitimate air-defense but an ambush. ..."
"... Exactly. The context. It happened in the wake of Putin's visit to Iran, which cemented the alliance Russia/Iran for time to come, and strengthened their ties at strategic levels. This is Turkey's declaration of war against both Russia and Iran for supporting Syria. ..."
"... Turkey was one of the G-20 countries denounced by Russia as sponsors of terrorism. Further investigations should expose Turkey et al financial links to takfiri terrorists, possibly creating a diplomatic/political downfall, and with UN sanctions in sight, a preemptive black flag operation was planned. It started with the circus of the Turkmen, calling Russia's envoy to protest, revival of the so-called safe-zone, and the shooting of the Russian jet is the logical consequence of a carefully developed choreography. ..."
"... Russia cannot just take the hit to avoid further escalation. As we all know, restraint and moderation is embedded in Russia's art of diplomacy, but if rabid dog Erdogan is not caged by his US/NATO handlers, the possibility of an escalation is high. However, in the aftermath of France 13/11, and the French/Russian collaboration, another coup from Russian diplomacy, we can expect NATO's response to be measured. ..."
I really don't think this was a whim of Erdogan - he must have had the go-ahead of Obama or even
all of NATO to do this - it is a little test case to see what Russia will do. This kind of 5-
or 10-second 'trespassing' must be going on on a daily basis, given the very limited aitrspace
in which all htese operations take place...
Russia has plenty of options and there's no rush. Turkey will still be there next week /month
/year. I hope Vlad keeps Emperor Erdogan in suspense for a while.
AFTER announcing that the shoot-down won't go un-answered.
Everyone likes a good thriller...
Live RT – statement by Putin: "We were stabbed in the back by terrorists' supporters. Serious
consequences for tragic events on Syrian border."
Further, quite irritated with Turkey, Putin said they talked to their NATO allies first before
contacting Russian foreign diplomats to discuss the event.
Omar Abdullah, commander of the
Sultan Abdulhamit Han Brigade in Syria, said on Monday that the Turkmen brigades have recaptured
a strategic point on Mount Turkmen from Assad forces backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
"Mount Turkmen has not fallen to Assad forces. They only seized a part of Kızıldağı," Abdullah
said.
In recent days, Syrian regime forces started a heavy assault on Mount Turkmen in Bayır Bucak,
a Turkmen populated area in Latakia province.
Turkmens were under intensified Russian airstrikes while Iranian forces and Hezbollah from
Lebanon launched a joint land attack with Assad forces. Russian warships fired missiles as tanks
and cannons attacked unarmed civilians in Mount Turkmen area.
12:53 GMT
Turkey backstabbed Russia by downing the Russian warplane and acted as accomplices of the terrorists,
Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
The plane was hit by a Turkish warplane as it was travelling 1 km away from the Turkish
border, Putin said. The plane posed no threat to Turkish national security, he stressed.
Putin said the plane was targeting terrorist targets in the Latakia province of Syria, many
of whom came from Russia.
Russia noticed of the flow of oil from Syrian territory under the control of terrorists
to Turkey, Putin said.
Apparently, IS now not only receives revenue from the smuggling of oil, but also has the
protection of a nation's military, Putin said. This may explain why the terrorist group is
so bold in taking acts of terrorism across the world, he added.
The incident will have grave consequences for Russia's relations with Turkey, Putin warned.
The fact that Turkey did not try to contact Russia in the wake of the incident and rushed
to call a NATO meeting instead is worrisome, Putin said. It appears that Turkey want NATO to
serve the interests of IS, he added.
Putin said Russia respects the regional interests of other nations, but warned the atrocity
committed by Turkey would not go without an answer.
Putin was speaking at a meeting with King of Jordan Abdullah II in Sochi, who expressed
his condolences to the Russian leader over the loss of a Russian pilot in Tuesday's incident,
as well as the deaths of Russians in the Islamic State bombing of a passenger plane in Egypt.
The two leaders discussed the anti-terrorist effort in Syria and Iraq and the diplomatic
effort to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
Strong words. It looks like Putin will hold Turkey to account for the downing of one of their
jets (and the death of at least one of their own) regardless. The russian intervention in Syria
will no doubt continue unabated, maybe even intensify, near the turkish border.
I wonder what assurances Turkey will get in turn from NATO.
In all honesty I think that the Russian "intervention" is way exaggerated. When I see the whole
picture I believe it is have been designed to save face of the West Death Squad aka regime change
policy. The western media offensive, hence the ruling establishment's policy, give us picture
of we-have-nothing-to-do-with-mercenaries. We are now to believe so-called IS is organic product
of Islam. And refuges are all terrorist or means to inflitrate into Europe, and their "way of
life". The West doesn't wont to be remembered by history department that it is them who instigate
of what we have today. Lessons from Central America is learned.
Remember, A HREF="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/leni-riefenstahl/">Leni
Riefenstahl's words.
...the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above," but on the "submissive
void" of the German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? "Everyone,"
she said.
Russia and the West has one thing in common, that is hate for Islam. While the West uses Islam
as a tool for social engineering and to promote own goals, Russia sees it as existential threat.
The West and Russia are alarmed by (unwelcome) refuges in condition of economic malaise.
Downing of Russian jet, if that what's really happened, is new development. As if the crisis
actors were unaware of danger which Russian action pose. Do we remember of shooting down mysterious
Turkish jet four years ago, of the coast of Latakia and not that far from now downed jet? How
come do not see the parachutes, and how come that "independent" channel filmed that as if per
order?
Now I believe that the jet was in the Syrian airspace. It is not difficult to figure out
that is purposeful action/plan by NATO and their faithful executioner Turkey. The plan might be
to shut down Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian Navy.
harry law | Nov 24, 2015 8:51:55 AM | 30
Putin said "This is a stab in the back and instead of immediately getting in contact with us,
as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from NATO to discuss
this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours". If the jet was shot down in
an action against an enemy at war, it would be acceptable. In these circumstances Turkey's action
itself was an act of war, since in no way could that Russian jet be threatening Turkey.
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather
by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners
never do."
Samuel Huntington, US Gov./CIA brain trust member.
The current Turkish-Syrian border was drawn with the Oct. 20, 1921, agreement signed between
France, the mandatary of Syria, and the Ankara government; regions such as Hatay as well as
Bayır and Bucak were on the Syrian side. This was approved in Lausanne.
Mersin deputy Niyazi (Ramazanoğlu) Bey delivered a very important speech in the parliament
on the day of Aug. 21, 1923. He stated that while the 1921 agreement was signed, Ankara
was still in a very troubled situation and criticized the acceptance of the border agreed upon
in 1921.
In his speech, Niyazi Bey explained the Turks who were left on the Syrian side as such:
"There were three villages left to us from Hassa. Others were Teyek, Ekbez, Beylan,
the boroughs of İskenderun, the township of Reyhaniye, the Antakya district, the Ordu district,
the Bayır, Bucak and Hazine townships, a major portion of the Kilis borough, the Elbeyli
and Turkmen districts south of Çobanbey-Cerablus region of Antep… This is all Turkish soil
that constitutes integrity with the motherland…"
This then was not legitimate air-defense but an ambush.
Exactly. The context. It happened in the wake of Putin's visit to Iran, which cemented the alliance
Russia/Iran for time to come, and strengthened their ties at strategic levels.
This is Turkey's declaration of war against both Russia and Iran for supporting
Syria.
Turkey was one of the G-20 countries denounced by Russia as sponsors of
terrorism. Further investigations should expose Turkey et al financial links to
takfiri terrorists, possibly creating a diplomatic/political downfall, and with UN
sanctions in sight, a preemptive black flag operation was planned. It started with
the circus of the Turkmen, calling Russia's envoy to protest, revival of the
so-called "safe-zone," and the shooting of the Russian jet is the logical
consequence of a carefully developed choreography.
As predicted, we have entered "Deadly Ground" (Sun Tzu).
Russia cannot just take the hit to avoid further escalation. As we all know,
restraint and moderation is embedded in Russia's art of diplomacy, but if rabid
dog Erdogan is not caged by his US/NATO handlers, the possibility of an escalation
is high. However, in the aftermath of France 13/11, and the French/Russian
"collaboration," another coup from Russian diplomacy, we can expect NATO's
response to be measured.
The next few days are crucial, and will test the extent of the US empire and
its minions commitment to destroy Syria and control the ME. It will also test
Russia and the 4+1 will to the strategic defense of the ME and by extension, of
the Eurasian mass.
The plan might be to shut down Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian Navy
This has been a plan known to Russia for some time, Turkey/US/NATO have
actively sought ways to break Montreux and stop the supply of necessary equipment
to both Assad and the Russian Federation Forces active in Syria via the "Syria
Express".
Lone Wolf@38. "The next few days are crucial, and will test the extent of the
US empire and its minions commitment to destroy Syria and control the ME". The US
in alliance with Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulfies are determined to have
hegemony over the middle east. The battle over Syria is crucial in that respect.
In my opinion the Syrians with the help of Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah will
triumph over the forces of medieval Wahhabism, and its enablers. The US position
in the middle east is at stake, so they will go all in. In the case of Iran, Syria
and Hezbollah this battle is existential, and so they will fight this battle to
the bitter end.
Claud | Nov 24, 2015 10:05:53 AM | 51
Apropos question of degree of US "nudge," I'm basically on the side of those who think no, first, and, anyway, Erdogan (user here as metonymy for Turkish "deep state") doesn't need nudge, and is used to US retroactively agreeing or covering-up whatever he decides to do, so there's no need to think Turkey's acting on behalf of anyone except itself.
HOWEVER, one news bit I've been reading here and there has been roughly to the effect that the CIA/other-three-letter-agencies people tasked with supplying/transporting/training the "moderate rebels" in Turkey have been in a very ugly "Bay of Pigs", Obama-fucked-us mood (a quote a journalist heard was, "Putin just made us his prison bitch"), and I imagine it's with those people that Turkish security types "interface" most from day to day. That might contribute to an odd idea of what DC would "really" want Turks to do.
All this obviously wildly speculative, and in a sense unnecessary in Occan's Razor terms (Erdogan quite capable of thinking this a good idea on his own). However, thought I'd bring up (possibly irrelevant) factor of a good number of pissed-off paramilitaries/contractors with little to do since Russia effectively shut down their "training" boondogle.
You can bet that USA and France were well aware of Turkey's support for ISIS -
and well before the Charlie Hebdo attack. Yet it is Russia that: details the
funding for ISIS; seriously attacks oil trucks; publicly names Turkey as an ISIS
'accomplice'.
The West should have demanded that Turkey cease their support of ISIS long ago.
Instead, we get political/police theatre: troops in the streets, mild airstrikes,
aircraft carrier deployments, MSM's amplifying of Islamophobia (ISIS is
everywhere!, refugees = ISIS!, oh-hum reporting of attacks on refugees),etc.
Prediction: NATO will support Turkey's defending of its airspace.
Tom Welsh | Nov 24, 2015 10:39:17 AM | 61
@RTE:
"Once you're In - it's hard to get out again".
As the Russians say, "it's a kopeck to get in, but a rouble to get out". Where a rouble may
mean a life.
harry law | Nov 24, 2015 11:10:01 AM | 84
RTE @59. "by all International laws and standards they had every right to do what they
did". I disagree, Russia is not at war with Turkey, violation of someones airspace, [if it
happened] should be dealt with diplomatically. What Turkey did was a act of war, there can be
no doubt about that.
Re: RTE | Nov 24, 2015 11:29:02 AM | 88
Problem with your reasoning is that the Russian plane seems to have been shot down in Syrian not in Turkish airspace so the violation is Turkish - if there has been a Russian violation before or not.
To shoot down an airplane is an act of war. Turkey dares to do it because they are part of NATO. NATO's reaction will tell if they back this provocation of Russia or not.
A very interesting, appropriate and very good response.
Sultan
Erdogan has been served notice. I hope he's bricking it. Let him
stew.
It makes sense that Putin should treat differentiate Turkey from
western states. It also help him to present NATO with a stark
choice and not much chance to try and claim the middle ground.
Either way, unless Turkey gets categorical support from the NATO
meeting and not the usual meaningless waffle, he's lost support
from both NATO & Russia. Not a good place to be in.
At about 8:30 he points out that terrorists from Russia are
located north of Latakia and could come back to kill Russians.
He mentions stab in the back twice. He's called Turkey as
complicit in supporting terrorism in all but direct name and
called the shooting down a crime. He's furious.
Still, this is King Abdullah of Jordan, a loyal American
ally, coming to Moscow. Crikey.
Abdullah's mother was English, daughter of an officer and
gentleman, no less, in the colonial service. That's why old
Abdullah is so well house-trained, I guess.
Putin's comment characterizing the Turkish action as a "stab in
the back" was spot on. As my father used to say in such
situations "They just shitted in their mess kit".
Good point that he made about the Turks immediately contacting
their NATO allies after downing the Russian warplane, which was
making no threat against Turkey, and not contacting Russia. "As if
we downed a Turkish jet", he says and asks: "Do they want NATO to
serve the interests of ISIS?" A stab in the back, he adds, as the
Turks are allegedly fighting terrorism in the area together with
their NATO partners.
et Al,
November 24, 2015 at 7:15 am
BBC's Jonothan Marcus, their chief diplomatic bloke, has just said that the Su-24 may only have crossed Turkish airspace for 15 or 20 seconds so shooting it down looks dodgy and comments that other military analysts point this out and that this is 'browned off' Turkey telling the Russians to keep out. Most normal people would call it an 'ambush', which is exactly what Moon of Alabama called it hours ago.
Russia's "allies" Belarus and Kazakhstans
supported the UN resolution recognizing the
nuclear facilities in the Crimea as
Ukrainian:
http://nnr.su/75218#hcq=2cNuCup
They
did not even abstain, but instead supported
the resolution.
It is scary how alone Russia seems to be
in it's western hemisphere. Surrounded by
Finland (coldly hostile against Russia),
the Baltics (extremely hostile chihuahuas),
Ukraine (hostile enough to nuke Russia if
it had nukes), Belarus (not really hostile,
but not friendly either. Next target for a
Western coup attempt), Turkey (hostile
enough to shoot down Russia's military
jets), Georgia (hostile), Azerbaijan
(hostile/neutral), Armenia (friendly, but
poor and meaningless).and Kazakhstan (seems
to be the best of Russia's neighbors, but
refuses to back Russia in international
stage).
Further to West there are also hostile
Sweden, very hostile Poland and Romania,
and hostile Bulgaria. Those European
countries with warm relations towards
Russia (like Serbia and Montenegro) are
small and strategically unimportant for
Russia.
How did it ever come to this?
Patient Observer, November 24, 2015 at 11:24 am
Seems like a good response so far per RT:
https://www.rt.com/news/323329-russia-suspend-military-turkey/
"Three steps as announced by top brass:
– Each and every strike groups' operation is to be carried out under the guise of fighter jets
– Air defense to be boosted with the deployment of Moskva guided missile cruiser off Latakia
coast with an aim to destroy any target that may pose danger
– Military contacts with Turkey to be suspended"
The Russian action of using ship-based anti-aircraft systems suggest that the stories about
S-300 or S-400 being deployed in Syria are likely not true (and conforming with what Russia
has maintained).
ANKARA - Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that Turkey has the right to take "all kinds
of measures" against border violations.
He was speaking amid reports that Turkish fighter jets downed a Russian military plane violating
Turkish airspace earlier on Tuesday.
Speaking during an engagement in Ankara, Davutoglu said:
"We would like the entire world to know that we will take all necessary measures and make any sacrifices
when it comes to the lives and dignity of our citizens and for the security of our borders while
our country is in a circle of fire."
Davutoglu said Turkey had exercised its "international right and national duty" by downing the plane
which the authorities say was flying over the country's southern Hatay province.
The Turkish premier called on the international community to act regarding the ongoing conflict in
Syria.
"Let's put out the fire in Syria," Davutoglu said, adding: "Our message is clear for the Syrian regime
forces, terrorist organizations or other foreign forces that are involved in pouring fire over Bayirbucak
Turkmens, Aleppo Arabs or Azaz Arabs, Kurds or Turkmens, instead of putting out the fire in Syria.
"While carrying out effective counter-terrorism we are aware that the prerequisite for counter-terrorism
is the growing up of young generations within peace and their love for each other," he added.
Turkish, UK PMs discuss downing of Russian jet
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had a phone conversation with his British counterpart David
Cameron on Tuesday after Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian warplane.
"Our prime minister has expressed that UN and NATO countries will be informed in detail about the
issue," said the Turkish Prime Ministry's press office in a statement.
"It was told [to Cameron] that the ambassadors of the P5 countries [China, France, Russia, the U.K.
and the U.S.] were also informed by our Foreign Ministry," the statement added.
"The Prime Minister strongly encouraged Prime Minister Davutoglu to make sure there was direct communication
between the Turks and Russians on this, so a clearer understanding could be formed of what had happened
and how to avoid this happening in the future and to avoid an escalation," said a Downing Street
spokeswoman.
"We respect Turkey's right to protect its airspace. There are procedures in place for flying through
a country's airspace - you need to seek permission and have it granted and there should be communication
between the authorities on the ground and the pilot. All those steps need to be properly followed,"
she added.
The two leaders agreed to meet on Sunday at the Turkey-EU summit in Brussels, according to the statement.
A Russian warplane was shot down at the Turkish-Syrian border earlier Tuesday after repeatedly ignoring
warnings that it was violating Turkish airspace.
Cameron is expected to address parliament Thursday to extend U.K. strikes against Daesh in Syria.
The U.K. targets the organization in Iraq.
Thousands of Turkmens have recently been displaced due to simultaneous air and ground attacks by
Syrian government forces and Russian jets. Approximately 2,000 Syrian Turkmens have arrived in southern
Turkey in the past several days.
Russian warplanes previously violated Turkish airspace twice in October. The incidents came within
a few days of the start of Russia's air campaign in Syria on Sept. 30 and led to international condemnation.
"... Obomber is an interventionista, owned by Lockheed. He at least has not had to duck shoes thrown at him, otherwise we have a repeat of W in the white house.e. Obomber also gets on the board of ARAMCO later in life ..."
Military Reviews U.S. Response to Rise of ISIS
By MATT APUZZO, MARK MAZZETTI, and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
The Pentagon has seized a trove of emails from military servers as it expands an inquiry into
Central Command over allegations that officials overstated the progress of airstrikes against
the Islamic State.
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military officials often provided misleadingly
upbeat assessments of battlefield efforts and belittled reporting that contradicted their narrative.
Their take on the progress of the troops was frequently at odds with the conclusions of civilian
intelligence analysts and reporting by journalists in the field. The opposing views were important
because they sometimes forced the Pentagon to face unpleasant truths and change course.
The war against the Islamic State terrorist group, which the Obama administration launched
more than a year ago, however, has unfolded out of sight by design....
Inquiry Weighs Whether ISIS Analysis Was Distorted
By MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's inspector general is investigating allegations that military officials
have skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the
Islamic State to provide a more optimistic account of progress, according to several officials
familiar with the inquiry....
ilsm ->anne...
Everything that is done inside the pentagon-capitol-K St axis is distorted to sell more weaponry
and plunder the US.
ilsm ->anne...
The same misinformation campaign brought you: 10 years of misguided war profiteering in Southeast
Asia for Saigon thugs' survival, the nuclear TRIAD to assure the US could kill everything on earth
in its dying throes, and the past 40 years of expensive imperialism around the world.
im1dc said...
November 22, 2015 at 08:45 AM
Ohhhh, someone is not happy with CENTCOM's 'manipulation of
(ISIL) intelligence'
Heads to Roll, Careers to be Ended,
and hopefully some time in the brig for the top brass who
ordered the bogus INTEL too
Fight against Islamic State militants - 8h ago
"Obama on manipulation of intelligence about Islamic State:
'I don't know what we'll discover in regards to what happened
at CENTCOM'"
im1dc said...
islm, the President thinks your belief of SA ISIL financial support is wrong
Fight against Islamic State militants - 9h ago
"Saudi Arabia is helping to co-ordinate the fight against financing for Islamic State, Obama says"
Fred C. Dobbs ->im1dc...
The Saudi guv'mint may
be cooperating, while
the vast Saudi wealth
may be at cross purposes.
ilsm ->im1dc...
Obomber is an interventionista, owned by Lockheed. He at least has not had to duck shoes
thrown at him, otherwise we have a repeat of W in the white house.e.
Obomber also gets on the board of ARAMCO later in life
"... The Russians have announced that they will partner with the French to fight the Islamic State in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. But beyond new friendships forged in the wake of the Paris massacre and the downing of a Russian charter flight over the Sinai in October, Moscow's strategic interest in Syria is longstanding and vital to its interest. ..."
"... For all the mythmaking and propaganda, there is a powerful historical context to Russia's latest foreign military intervention. Like all states that try to project force beyond their borders, Putin's Russia faces limits. But those limits differ markedly from those that doomed America's recent fiascoes in Iraq and Afghanistan. ..."
"... The spectacular international attacks by Islamic State militants against targets in the Sinai, Beirut, and Paris have reminded Western powers of the other interests at stake beyond a resurgent Russia ..."
LATAKIA, Syria - When Russian jets started bombing Syrian insurgents, it was no surprise that
fans of President Bashar Assad felt buoyed. What was surprising was the outsized, even over-the-top
expectations placed on Russian help.
"They're not like the Americans," explained a Syrian government official responsible for escorting
journalists around the coastal city of Latakia. "When they get involved, they do it all the way."
Naturally, tired supporters of the Assad regime are susceptible to any optimistic thread they
can cling to after five years of a war that the government was decisively losing when the Russians
unveiled a major military intervention in October. Russian fever isn't entirely driven by hope and
ignorance. Many of the Syrians cheering the Russian intervention know Moscow well.
A fluent Russian speaker, the bureaucrat in Latakia had spent nearly a decade in Moscow studying
and working. Much of Syria's military and Ba'ath Party elite trained in Moscow, steeped in Soviet-era
military and political doctrine, along with an unapologetic culture of tough-talking secular nationalism
(there's also a shared affinity for vodka or other spirits).
The Russians have announced that they will partner with the French to fight the Islamic State
in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. But beyond new friendships forged in the wake of the
Paris massacre and the downing of a Russian charter flight over the Sinai in October, Moscow's strategic
interest in Syria is longstanding and vital to its interest.
The world reaction to the Russian offensive in Syria has been as much about perception as military
reality. Putin, according to Russian analysts who carefully study his policy, wants more than anything
else to reassert Russia's role as a high-stakes player in the international system.
Sure, they say, he wants to reduce the heat from his invasion of Ukraine, and he wants to keep
a loyal client in place in Syria, but most of all, he wants Russia's Great Power role back.
For all the mythmaking and propaganda, there is a powerful historical context to Russia's latest
foreign military intervention. Like all states that try to project force beyond their borders, Putin's
Russia faces limits. But those limits differ markedly from those that doomed America's recent fiascoes
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The spectacular international attacks by Islamic State militants against targets in the Sinai,
Beirut, and Paris have reminded Western powers of the other interests at stake beyond a resurgent
Russia and a prickly Iran. Until now, Russia's new role in Syria has stymied the West, impinging
on its air campaign against ISIS and all but eliminating the possibility of an anti-Assad no-fly
zone. ...
A day after the horrific attacks in Paris, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov announced a silver lining: The world had come together and agreed to end the Syrian
civil war. At a press conference in Vienna, they laid out an ambitious time line. A cease-fire would
be negotiated in a matter of weeks between the Assad regime and rebel groups, with the exception
of "terrorists." Talks between Assad and the opposition would be held by Jan. 1. A "credible, inclusive,
nonsectarian" government would be established within six months. A new constitution and free and
fair elections would materialize within 18 months.
If their plan - backed by the Arab League, the United Nations, the European Union, Egypt, Iran,
Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates - sounds too
good to be true, that's because it probably is.
Much like Kerry's overly optimistic goal of creating a Palestinian state within two years, the Syria
plan is based more on the desire for peace than the prospects for it actually happening on the ground.
...
... One of the goals of radical Islamic terrorist groups is to divide Muslims and the rest of
the world. The disparity in our concern for victims of terrorism, depending on the country attacked
and the dominant religion, inadvertently feeds into their narrative. ...
I am as committed to my American identity as I am to my Muslim identity, but I often cannot feel
fully at home in either due to misunderstandings and poorly managed conflicts between the two. Muslims
like myself seeking to bring reconciliation often encounter backlash and distrust from extremist
Muslims and Americans alike.
But my hybrid identity as a Muslim-American born and raised in New Jersey serves as the foundation
for my commitment to dialogue facilitation, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. As an American,
I know the sheer terror that 9/11 instilled in our individual and collective psyche. I understand
the desire to regain a sense of security and comfort in our everyday lives and to defend against
any group or ideology that appears even remotely threatening. As a Muslim, I know the exasperation
of having our religion hijacked and used for something that was never its purpose. I understand the
outrage of being held responsible for what we did not do – in the form of discrimination, prejudice,
and warfare against home countries.
The sources of misunderstanding and pain for Americans and Muslims are actually not so different:
They arise out of fear and trauma. So, too, the sources for healing are shared, and can be found
in dialogue, compassion, and community. I see my purpose as guiding members of these groups to realizing
these commonalities, and from this basis developing relationships that mitigate and prevent violent
manifestations of conflict. Through my hybrid identity as a Muslim-American, I strive to provide
one of many examples of how it is indeed possible to move past fear of "the other" and toward mutually
beneficial relationships.
One of my most treasured verses in the Qur'an - introduced to me by a Catholic - has a universal
message: "If God had so willed, He could have made you a single people, but His plan is to test you
in what He has given you, so strive as one human race in all virtues according to what He has given
you (5:48)." Most especially in the wake of trauma and terror, how we each decide to engage with
"the other" is our own individual choice, but the fate is shared by us all. ...
(Saadia Ahmad is a student studying conflict resolution at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy
and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston.)
Selected Skeptical Comments from Economist's View blog
'Putin, according to Russian
analysts who
carefully study his policy, wants more than
anything else to reassert Russia's role as a
high-stakes player in the international system.'
It's almost like Putin wants Russia to
'assume
among the powers of the earth the separate
and equal station to which the laws of
nature entitle' them. What nerve?
A day after the attacks in Paris underlined the global danger posed by the continuing
violence in Syria, Russia, the United States, and governments in Europe and the Middle East
agreed at talks in Vienna to a road map for ending the devastating and destabilizing war.
The proposal (*), which appears to draw heavily from a Russian peace plan circulated
before the talks, sets Jan. 1 as a deadline for the start of negotiations between Bashar
al-Assad's government and opposition groups. Within six months, they would be required to
create an "inclusive and non-sectarian" transitional government that would set a schedule
for holding new, internationally supervised elections within 18 months. Western diplomats
involved in the talks told the Wall Street Journal that the meeting had produced more progress
than expected, and the events in Paris may have added new urgency to the proceedings, given
the need to build a united front against ISIS, but stumbling blocks remain.
The biggest one is the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose role is side-stepped
in the agreement. ...
Not them, but apparently 'the Arab League, the United Nations, the European Union,
Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United
Arab Emirates' are on board.
Could be the other parties were otherwise engaged.
ilsm ->
Fred C. Dobbs...
There is a story going around about Iranian F-14's escorting Russian Bear bombers
on their way through to bomb Syrian deserts.
US navy went all out for F-18 and Tom Cruse's F-14 been in the boneyard for years.
Israel just did something a wee bit nutty with their most recent wish list of US war
goodies. It's one of those nerdtastically insider geek things that might actually mean some
really interesting stuff.
So - drumroll please - reports have just emerged that Israel wants to buy a proposed,
but as yet unmade, version of the F-15 fighter jet called the F-15SE Silent Eagle, in addition
to several F-35s.
Okay, so it's not that exciting, unless you've been following the Israeli Air Force.
But if you have, this purchase tells you something interesting about what advice those guys
are getting from their strategic-planning Ouija boards on the topic of stealth...
Israel
is using US aid money to "buy" F-35's, likely because the "F-35 sale is a string" for support
for more aid to the IDF. There are many things the F-35 cannot do, there are many issues
that mean sustaining 18 F-35's is less "capability" than 12 F-15 or F-16's.
Stealth is less a game changer than the reality of F-35 expenses and flaws. I am no fan
of stealth it adds expense and overhead with unproven theory as to its "use".
A single engine fighter that carries 16000 of jet fuel is troubling. Rumblings USAF wants
a buy of F-16s and F-35s for the same reasons.
I have a regard for F-4's if nothing else they are only a little less ugly than the A-10,
unless they save your bacon in a tight spot on the front line.
The war in Syria has become a tangled web of conflict dominated by competing military factions
fueled by an overlapping mixture of ideologies and political agendas.
Just below it, experts suspect, they're powered by something else: Captagon.
The tiny, highly addictive pill is produced in Syria and now widely available across
the Middle East. Its illegal sale funnels hundreds of millions of dollars back into the
war-torn country's black-market economy each year, likely giving militias access to new
arms, fighters, and the ability to keep the conflict boiling, according to the Guardian.
''Syria is a tremendous problem in that it's a collapsed security sector, because of
its porous borders, because of the presence of so many criminal elements and organized networks,''
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime regional representative, Masood Karimipour, told Voice
of America.
''There's a great deal of trafficking being done of all sorts of illicit goods - guns,
drugs, money, people. But what is being manufactured there and who is doing the manufacturing,
that's not something we have visibility into from a distance.''
A powerful amphetamine tablet based on the original synthetic drug known as fenethylline,
Captagon quickly produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing Syria's fighters to stay
up for days, killing with a numb, reckless abandon.
''You can't sleep or even close your eyes; forget about it,'' said a Lebanese user, one
of three who appeared on camera without their names for a BBC Arabic documentary that aired
in September. ''And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it.''
''I felt like I own the world high,'' another user said. ''Like I have power nobody has.
A really nice feeling.''
''There was no fear anymore after I took Captagon,'' a third man added. ...
... production of Captagon has taken root in Syria, long a heavily trafficked thoroughfare
for drugs journeying from Europe to the Gulf States, and it has begun to blossom.
''The breakdown of state infrastructure, weakening of borders and proliferation of armed
groups during the nearly three-year battle for control of Syria, has transformed the country
from a stopover into a major production site,'' Reuters reported.
''Production in Lebanon's Bekaa valley - a traditional center for the drug - fell 90
percent last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria,''
the Guardian noted.
Cheap and easy to produce using legal materials, the drug can be purchased for less than
$20 a tablet and is popular among those Syrian fighters who don't follow strict interpretations
of Islamic law, according to the Guardian. ...
"... By far the most important thing GOP voters are looking for in a candidate is someone to "bring needed change to Washington." ..."
"... He's very strong in several of the early states right now including NH, NV and SC. And he could do very well on "Super Tuesday" with all those southern states voting. I can't see anyone but Trump or Carson winning in Georgia right now, for example, most likely Trump. ..."
"... And as for the idea of the GOP establishment ganging up on him and/or uniting behind another candidate like Rubio, that's at least as likely to backfire as to work. And even if it works, what's to stop Trump from then running as an independent? ..."
"... Indeed. You have a party whose domestic policy agenda consists of shouting "death panels!", whose foreign policy agenda consists of shouting "Benghazi!", and which now expects its base to realize that Trump isn't serious. Or to put it a bit differently, the definition of a GOP establishment candidate these days is someone who is in on the con, and knows that his colleagues have been talking nonsense. Primary voters are expected to respect that? ..."
"... ... with Trump in the race, all of those states-which are more red than they were in '08-are likely out for Democrats. Swing states like Colorado and Virginia are clear toss-ups. There are few states that Romney or McCain won where Trump, as the Republican nominee, wouldn't be in the running, and an analysis of other key states shows that Trump's in far better position than his detractors would like to admit. If Trump were to win every state that Romney won, Trump would stand today at 206 electoral votes, with 55 electoral votes up for grabs in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. Similarly, Trump does not necessarily lose in a single toss-up state versus Hillary Clinton and, in fact, is seemingly competitive in many. ..."
"... Which all means that the election comes down to Florida and Ohio, two states where Trump has significant advantages. In Florida (29 electoral votes), he is a part-time resident and is polling better than the state's former governor and sitting U.S. senator. ... ..."
"... A brokered convention, maybe? Even Romney would have a shot. ..."
"... Top-tier presidential campaigns are preparing for the still-unlikely scenario that the nomination fight goes all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention. ..."
"... There hasn't been a brokered convention since 1976, but the strength of the GOP field, when coupled with the proliferation of super PACs, increases the chances that several candidates could show up in Cleveland next July with an army of delegates at their backs ..."
"... Since the November 13 attacks, every poll-in Florida, two in New Hampshire, and three nationwide-shows Trump maintaining or expanding his lead against his primary opponents. Poor Ben Carson, only recently Trump's chief rival, is losing energy like, well, you know who. In the Fox NH poll, it's Trump at 27, Rubio 13, Cruz 11, and Carson down there at 9 percent alongside Jeb! ..."
"... Play it out: an outsider who's dismissed by his party's elite, comes into the race and overwhelms a large, much more experienced group of candidates in a series of state primaries, both increasing his margins and improving as a candidate as he goes long. All the time riding a crisis that seems made for his candidacy. Does that sound like a sure loser? ... ..."
"... While the investigation into US bombing waste is keyed on who padded the figures rather than the ineptitude of bombing in any use other than taking out property owners to get the greedy to say uncle . The shame of Paris is attributable to the US war machine and every issue requires more money for the pentagon. ..."
"... No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today! Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame. ..."
Alan Abramowitz reads the latest WaPo poll and emails:
'Read these results (#) and tell me how Trump doesn't win the Republican nomination? I've been
very skeptical about this all along, but I'm starting to change my mind. I think there's at least
a pretty decent chance that Trump will be the nominee.
Here's why I think Trump could very well end up as the nominee:
1. He's way ahead of every other candidate now and has been in the lead or tied for the lead
for a long time.
2. The only one even giving him any competition right now is Carson who is even less plausible
and whose support is heavily concentrated among one (large) segment of the base-evangelicals.
3. Rubio, the great establishment hope now, is deep in third place, barely in double digits
and nowhere close to Trump or Carson.
4. By far the most important thing GOP voters are looking for in a candidate is someone to
"bring needed change to Washington."
5. He is favored on almost every major issue by Republican voters including immigration and
terrorism by wide margins. The current terrorism scare only helps him with Republicans. They want
someone who will "bomb the shit" out of the Muslim terrorists.
6. There is clearly strong support among Republicans for deporting 11 million illegal immigrants.
They don't provide party breakdown here, but support for this is at about 40 percent among all
voters so it's got to be a lot higher than that, maybe 60 percent, among Republicans.
7. If none of the totally crazy things he's said up until now have hurt him among Republican
voters, why would any crazy things he says in the next few months hurt him?
8. He's very strong in several of the early states right now including NH, NV and SC. And he
could do very well on "Super Tuesday" with all those southern states voting. I can't see anyone
but Trump or Carson winning in Georgia right now, for example, most likely Trump.
9. And as for the idea of the GOP establishment ganging up on him and/or uniting behind another
candidate like Rubio, that's at least as likely to backfire as to work. And even if it works,
what's to stop Trump from then running as an independent?'
Indeed. You have a party whose domestic policy agenda consists of shouting "death panels!",
whose foreign policy agenda consists of shouting "Benghazi!", and which now expects its base to
realize that Trump isn't serious. Or to put it a bit differently, the definition of a GOP establishment
candidate these days is someone who is in on the con, and knows that his colleagues have been
talking nonsense. Primary voters are expected to respect that?
My guess is that if people dug deeper into the support for Trump, they would find that
there is a certain percentage of Republicans who have supported Trump because he was a
business man - the only one in the pack - not because they wanted another crazy xenophobic
racist wingnut. Now that Trump has gone full wingnut, they are frustrated with the mess they
have created for themselves.
Fred C. Dobbs -> Dan Kervick...
Here's Why Donald Trump
Really Could Be Elected President http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/donald-trump-could-be-president
via @VanityFair
David Burstein - October 22
... with Trump in the race, all of those states-which are more red than they were in
'08-are likely out for Democrats. Swing states like Colorado and Virginia are clear toss-ups.
There are few states that Romney or McCain won where Trump, as the Republican nominee,
wouldn't be in the running, and an analysis of other key states shows that Trump's in far
better position than his detractors would like to admit. If Trump were to win every state that
Romney won, Trump would stand today at 206 electoral votes, with 55 electoral votes up for
grabs in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Hampshire. Similarly, Trump
does not necessarily lose in a single toss-up state versus Hillary Clinton and, in fact, is
seemingly competitive in many.
Virginia is trending blue, but could be a toss-up, particularly given the tale of Dave Brat,
whose success in 2014 could be read as a harbinger of Trump. Colorado will have high
Republican turnout, given that it is home to what's likely to be one of the country's most
contested Senate races-which could make it more competitive than it should be, considering
Trump's comments about Latinos. Depending on how well Trump shows in the Iowa and New
Hampshire primaries, they too could be in play. In two of the remaining states, Wisconsin and
Nevada, any Democratic nominee will have an upper hand-particularly Clinton.
But Trump will be able to effectively contest, particularly in a place like Wisconsin, with
working-class white voters who elected Scott Walker three times in four years. Finally,
Pennsylvania, which has been leaning ever-more blue and will likely go blue this year, will
nonetheless require Clinton to spend some resources and time there-taking away from her
efforts in other swing states.
Which all means that the election comes down to Florida and Ohio, two states where
Trump has significant advantages. In Florida (29 electoral votes), he is a part-time resident
and is polling better than the state's former governor and sitting U.S. senator. ...
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...
Long time, still, from now to the
GOP convention. (Curiously, less every week, however.)
Some GOPsters (including Bush, Rubio,
various others) know in their hearts that eventually Trump & Carson will fade, or be dumped, and
*their* star will ascend. Sure.
A brokered convention, maybe? Even Romney would have a shot.
Could the GOP Really See a Brokered Convention
in 2016? http://natl.re/CLXxxf via @NRO
Joel Gehrke - May 14, 2015
Ask around and you'll hear a consistent theme from political strategists
in the Republican party: The 2016 primary is wide open. "It is by far the most interesting presidential
year since I've been involved [in Republican politics]," says Steve Munisteri, a senior adviser
to Senator Rand Paul.
How interesting? Top-tier presidential campaigns are preparing for the still-unlikely scenario
that the nomination fight goes all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention.
There hasn't been a brokered convention since 1976, but the strength of the GOP field,
when coupled with the proliferation of super PACs, increases the chances that several candidates
could show up in Cleveland next July with an army of delegates at their backs. "It's certainly
more likely now than it's been in any prior election, going back to 1976," Thor Hearn, the general
counsel to George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, tells National Review. "I don't put it as
a high likelihood, but it's a much more realistic probability than it's been in any recent experience."
...
The Paris attacks have made the demagogue even stronger.
Tt hurts to put these words in print, but… Ann Coulter may be right. Shortly after the Paris
attacks began last Friday, she tweeted, "They can wait if they like until next November for the
actual balloting, but Donald Trump was elected president tonight."
Stephen Colbert agrees. He told us this week to get used to saying "President Trump"-and led
his studio audience to repeat the words in unison and then pretend to barf.
Yes, it's hard to stomach. America's most entertaining demagogue winning the GOP primaries
and then the general? It can't happen here, can it?
Democrats have been expressing absolute incredulity at the possibility, and quietly chuckling
to themselves about the Clinton landslide to come if Donald is his party's nominee. The Huffington
Post has banned Trump from its politics section and relegated him to Entertainment, as if there
he'd be no more than a joke.
The problem is that our liberal incredulity mirrors that of the Republican establishment, which
refuses to believe that their front-runner of five straight months could possibly win their nomination.
Now even after the carnage in Paris, Beltway pundits are telling themselves that the base will
sober up and turn toward "experienced" pols like Rubio or Bush and away from the newbie nuts.
As the always-wrong Bill Kristol said of this latest terrorism crisis, "I think it hurts Trump
and Carson, honestly."
But, honestly, it's only strengthened Trump. Since the November 13 attacks, every poll-in
Florida, two in New Hampshire, and three nationwide-shows Trump maintaining or expanding his lead
against his primary opponents. Poor Ben Carson, only recently Trump's chief rival, is losing energy
like, well, you know who. In the Fox NH poll, it's Trump at 27, Rubio 13, Cruz 11, and Carson
down there at 9 percent alongside Jeb!
It's easy to laugh at GOPers in denial, but progressives who pooh-pooh Trump's chances of beating
Hillary may be whistling past the graveyard of American democracy.
A post-Paris Reuters/Ipsos poll asked 1,106 people which candidate, from the entire 2016 field,
could best tackle terrorism, and respondents put Trump and Clinton on equal footing, at 20 percent
each.
Not good-when it comes to taking on terrorists, a reality-show "carnival barker" who's never
served in the military nor held elected office is tied with a decidedly hawkish former secretary
of state?
Play it out: an outsider who's dismissed by his party's elite, comes into the race and
overwhelms a large, much more experienced group of candidates in a series of state primaries,
both increasing his margins and improving as a candidate as he goes long. All the time riding
a crisis that seems made for his candidacy. Does that sound like a sure loser? ...
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs...
Media hype, more Americans died, most did not want to, from gun violence this past weekend......
While the investigation into US bombing waste is keyed on "who padded the figures" rather than
the ineptitude of bombing in any use other than taking out property owners to get the greedy to
say "uncle". The shame of Paris is attributable to the US war machine and every issue requires more money
for the pentagon.
847328_3527
But they're still ... "jealous of our freedom" right?
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the
1970s, but they never attacked innocent women and children
indiscriminately," he said.
No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile
mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and FBI,
etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and
such exists today!
Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless
number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in
CIA-overthrown countries, aiding and abetting their secret police
(Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000
deaths, ending up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret
police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank
for International Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you
devils are to blame.
Recommended reading (to better understand why the USA is known
as the Great Satan):
Funny how these fucks can come out and say this kind of shit and get away with it.
The fucker's basically pleading guilty to murder, FFS.
Ms No
They didn't kill anybody in South America my ass.... The school of Americas, Operation Condor, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador .... who the hell are they kidding? The CIA has always been covered and nobody ever cared.
Perimetr
Perimetr's picture
"If there's blame to be put. . ."
It's on the CIA for running its global terrorist operations, funded by the $1 trillion dollars a year coming from its Afghanistan heroin operation.
sirs and madams,
.
"Christmas celebration this year is going to be a charade because the whole world is at war.
We are close to Christmas. There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even
Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war.
It's all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war.
A war can be justified, so to speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is
today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be-a little here, a little there-there is no
justification.
What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall
remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims, and lots of
money in the pockets of arms dealers."
The discovery of America by Europe had to happen. The savages had to be eliminated and The
Revolutionary War had to happen. Slavery had to begin, and after it, segregation had to begin,
but, what must be, will be, slavery and segregation had to end. Old School colonization of
poor nations had to happen. The Boer War had to happen. The Spanish American War had to
happen. The Main had to be sunk. WWI had to happen. Calvary charges had to end. Totalitarian
Communism had to happen. Germany's 20's depression had to happen, reactionary jingoism had to
happen, and Kristallnacht and the Reichstag fire had to happen. The Allies had to win WWII,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be publicity stunts, and the Cold War had to begin. JFK had to
be wacked, the Vietnam War had to happen, the FED still was happening. Civil Rights laws had
to be passed. Recognition of China had to happen, going off the gold standard had to happen,
and Nixon had to be kicked out of office. Corporate Globalization had to begin. After Carter
an actor had to be President. Unions had to be stifled. Perestroika and glasnost had to
happen. The Berlin Wall had to come down. The MIC had to find another enemy, and suddenly 9/11
had to happen. …
Over population has to happen, poisoning the environment has to happen, and the NWO has to
happen.
Ladies and gentlemen, the NWO is here, and there is nothing you can do, and nothing
you could have done to stop it.
Edit. I see none of our supposed enemies 'truth bombing' 9/11, 7/7, and the 13th Paris
attacks. I see no trade embagoes, I see no arguments in the Security Council over the
illegality of US/Nato bombing in Syria.
blindman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_79...
Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
Posted: 08/03/2015 11:48 am EDT
.
On July 28, Thom Hartmann interviewed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and, at the very end
of his show (as if this massive question were merely an afterthought), asked him his opinion
of the 2010 Citizens United decision and the 2014 McCutcheon decision, both decisions by the
five Republican judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. These two historic decisions enable
unlimited secret money (including foreign money) now to pour into U.S. political and judicial
campaigns. Carter answered:
It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's
just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the
nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors,
and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political
system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for
themselves after the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and
Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is
already in Congress has a great deal more to sell." ...
.
it is the money "system", man.
blindman
corporations and hoodwink powers ride on the indifference of the damned, the silence of the
dead and doomed.
Dinero D. Profit
The Satus Quo can rely upon the loyalty of their employees, Congress, the military, the
military industrial contractors, their workers and family members, the crime control
establishment, all Uniersity professors and employees, and every employee of all publically
traded companies, and every person employed by the MSM.
The dead and doomed are irrelevant. If you have an establishment job, you'll obey and ask
no vital questions.
Dick Buttkiss
Sunnis and Shiites hate each other far more than they hate Christians, Jews, or anyone else.
If it weren't for oil, the USG wouldn't give a flyiing fuck if they anihilated each other.
Instead, it conspires with them in ways far beyond its ability to comprehend, much less navigate.
Thus is the US ship of state heading for the shoals of its destruction, the only question being how much of the country and the outside world it takes down with it.
ross81
thats bullshit Western propaganda that Shiites hate Sunnis and vice versa. In the same way that the Brits stirred up Protestant hatred of Catholics in Ulster for centuries, the US/Israel/Saudi does the same with Sunnis vs Shiites on a much bigger scale in the Middle East. Divide and Conquer.
geno-econ
This is getting scary in that one or two more attacks will result in travel freezes, flow of Middle East oil and result in huge increase in military as well as Homeland security costs. A depression or economic collapse a real possibility Perhaps time for a Peace Conference of all interested parties. The US started this shit and should be the first to call for a Peace Conference. Macho talk will only make things worse.
moonmac
We can print trillions out of thin air at the drop of a hat but we can't kill a small group of terrorists. Got it!
sgt_doom
Or, we pour billions of dollars every year into the CIA, NSA, and DIA, and only a poor old fart such as myself can figure out that Bilal Erdogan is the ISIS connection to oil trading (Turkish president, Erdogan's son) and Erdogan's daughter is with ISIS?
GRDguy
Ex-CIA boss gets it wrong, again.
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
should be:
"When you have a small group of financial sociopaths willing to lie-to, steal-from and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
and you'll probably be punished, jailed or shot for tryin' to protect yourself and your family.
Ban KKiller
War profiteer. That is it.
Along wth James Comey, James Clapper, Jack Welch and the list is almost endless...
BarnacleBill
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
Simply take out the word "their", and the description perfectly fits the CIA, MI6 and their like. For them, it's all a business deal, nothing more - a massive slum-clearance project. Destroy people's houses, provide accommodation and food, ship them somewhere else; do it again and again until the money-printing machine conks out. It's money for old rope.
And, yes, we're all vulnerable. The man got that right.
Duc888
"You get the politicians you deserve."
CIA types are appointed, not elected.
Duc888
I do not know if there are any Catherine Austin Fitts fans on this web site but this is definitely worth the time. The FEDGOV came after her non stop for 6 years when she worked for HUD under Bush Sr. If nothing else this lady is tenacious. In this presentation she uncorks exactly HOW the deep black budgets are paid for...and it ain't your tax dollars. What she uncovered while at HUD was simply amazing..... and she made an excellent point. At the top... it's NOT "fraud" because that's how it was all deigned right from the get go after wwII. It brings to mind the funny computer saying....."it's a feature, not a bug".
She digs right into how the CIA was funded...
Truly amazing stuff.
...of course the dick head brigade will come along here and deride her because of the conference she is speaking at.... well, who the fuck cares, her presentation is excellent and filled with facts. Yes it is 1 hour 20 minutes long but imho it is well worth the watch...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8
Dragon HAwk
After reading all these posts my only question is why does the CIA allow Zero Hedge to Exist ?
"... Imagine a U.S. presidential candidate who met with the Russian government and repeatedly accused them of being too soft on
President Obama. A candidate who told Russias foreign minister of the need to set limits on the White Houses misbehavior, and that the
Russians silence on the abusive mistreatment [Russia] suffered at the hands of the Obama administration had encouraged more of the same.
..."
"... Mauricio Macri, a right-wing businessman from one of the countrys richest families, is running for president in elections this
Sunday. According to leaked documents from the U.S. Embassy, published by WikiLeaks, this is the conversation he had with the U.S. ambassador
and the U.S. State Department official in charge of Latin America. He was very concerned that Washington was too soft on Argentina and
was encouraging abusive treatment of the U.S. at the hands of the Argentine government. ..."
"... From 2003-2015, according to the IMF, the real (inflation-adjusted) Argentine economy grew by about 78 percent. (There is some
dispute over this number, but not enough to change the overall picture.) This is quite a large increase in living standards, one of
the biggest in the Americas. Unemployment fell from more than 17.2 percent to 6.9 percent (IMF). The government created the largest
conditional cash transfer program in the Americas for the poor. From 2003 to the second half of 2013 (the latest independent statistics
available), poverty fell by about 70 percent and extreme poverty by 80 percent. (These numbers are based on independent estimates of
inflation.) ..."
"... In the last four years, growth has slowed, inflation has been higher, and a black market has developed for the dollar. Some
of this has been due to a number of unfavorable external shocks: the regional economy will have negative growth this year (Argentinas
will be slightly positive); ..."
Warning Signs on the Road to "Change" in Argentina
By Mark Weisbrot
Imagine a U.S. presidential candidate who met with the Russian government and repeatedly accused them of being "too soft"
on President Obama. A candidate who told Russia's foreign minister of the "need to set limits" on the White House's "misbehavior,"
and that the Russians' "silence" on the "abusive mistreatment [Russia] suffered" at the hands of the Obama administration "had encouraged
more of the same."
Would Americans trust such a candidate? OK, that's a rhetorical question. But in Argentina, it's real.
Mauricio Macri, a right-wing businessman from one of the country's richest families, is running for president in elections
this Sunday. According to leaked documents from the U.S. Embassy, published by WikiLeaks, this is the conversation he had with the
U.S. ambassador and the U.S. State Department official in charge of Latin America. He was very concerned that Washington was "too
soft" on Argentina and was encouraging "abusive treatment" of the U.S. at the hands of the Argentine government.
The analogy is not perfect, since the current Russian government has never played a major role -- or any role, for that matter
-- in wrecking the U.S. economy and creating a Great Depression here. But the U.S. Treasury Department, which was the International
Monetary Fund's decider during Argentina's severe depression of 1998-2002, did indeed exert an enormous influence on the policies
that prolonged and deepened that depression. Argentines are not holding a grudge, but neither would they want the U.S. to again play
a major role in their politics or economic policy.
But there are other reasons to worry about Macri's intentions that hit closer to home. In his conversations with U.S. officials,
in 2009, he referred to the economic policies of the Kirchners -- Néstor Kirchner, who was president from 2003-2007, and his wife
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was elected in 2007 -- as "a failed economic model." He has made similar statements during the
campaign, and although he has often been vague, he has indicated that he wants something very different, and considerably to the
right of current economic policy.
It is worth looking at this much-maligned record of the Kirchners, especially since Daniel Scioli, who is the candidate of Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner and her "Front for Victory" alliance, represents some continuity with "Kirchnerismo." Macri's coalition is
called "Cambiemos," or "Let's Change."
From 2003-2015, according to the IMF, the real (inflation-adjusted) Argentine economy grew by about 78 percent. (There is
some dispute over this number, but not enough to change the overall picture.) This is quite a large increase in living standards,
one of the biggest in the Americas. Unemployment fell from more than 17.2 percent to 6.9 percent (IMF). The government created the
largest conditional cash transfer program in the Americas for the poor. From 2003 to the second half of 2013 (the latest independent
statistics available), poverty fell by about 70 percent and extreme poverty by 80 percent. (These numbers are based on independent
estimates of inflation.)
But these numbers do not describe the full magnitude of the achievement. As I describe in my book, "Failed: What the 'Experts'
Got Wrong About the Global Economy" (Oxford University Press, 2015), Néstor Kirchner took office as the economy was beginning to
recover from a serious depression, and it took great courage and tenacity to stand up to the IMF and its allies, negotiate a sustainable
level of foreign debt (which involved sticking to a large default), and implement a set of macroeconomic policies that would allow
for this remarkable recovery. It was analogous to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership during the U.S. Great Depression,
and like Roosevelt, Kirchner had the majority of the economics profession against him -- as well as the media. Cristina Fernández
de Kirchner also had to fight a number of battles to continue Argentina's economic progress.
In the last four years, growth has slowed, inflation has been higher, and a black market has developed for the dollar. Some
of this has been due to a number of unfavorable external shocks: the regional economy will have negative growth this year (Argentina's
will be slightly positive); Argentina's biggest trading partner, Brazil, is in recession and has seen its currency plummet;
and in 2014 a New York judge of questionable competence made a political decision to block Argentina from making debt payments to
most of its creditors. So, despite the overall track record of 12 years of Kirchnerismo delivering a large increase in living standards
and employment, and successful poverty reduction, there are significant problems that need to be fixed.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran for president of the United States in the midst of a recession and inflation passing 13 percent. He,
too, promised change and he delivered it -- and ushered in an era of sharply increased inequality and other social, political, and
economic maladies from which America is still suffering. Just look at his proud progeny in the Republican presidential debates.
Macri probably does not have Reagan's talent as an actor and communicator to radically transform Argentina and reverse most of
the gains of the last 13 years. But it seems likely from the interests that he represents, and his political orientation, that Argentina's
poor and working people will bear the brunt of any economic adjustment. And there is a serious risk that by following right-wing
"fixes" for the economy, he could launch a cycle of self-defeating austerity and recession of the kind that we have seen in Greece
and the eurozone.
The Kirchners also reversed the impunity of military officers responsible for mass murder and torture during the dictatorship,
and hundreds have been tried and convicted for their crimes. Macri has dismissed these unprecedented human rights achievements as
mere political showmanship. His party also voted against marriage equality, which was passed anyway, making Argentina the first country
in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage.
"Let's Change" is an appealing slogan, but the question is "change to what?"
"... From the man who brought you the Iraq war and the rise of ISIS--how to solve the ISIS crisis. ..."
"... Youd think ppl who brought the Iraq war, the best recruiters of ISIS, would be nowhere to be seen; but no, are telling how to deal w/ISIS. ..."
"... Narrative is the foundation of their skewed analysis. Their object is to sell perpetual war using super high tech, exquisitely expensive, contractor maintained versions of WW II formations to expired resources eternally for the profits they deliver. They starve the safety net to pay for their income security. ..."
"... ... In July of last year, the New York Times ran two pieces tying Clinton to the neoconservative movement. In "The Next Act of the Neocons," (*) Jacob Heilbrunn argued that neocons like historian Robert Kagan are putting their lot in with Clinton in an effort to stay relevant while the GOP shies away from its past interventionism and embraces politicians like Senator Rand Paul: ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... Kagan served on Clinton's bipartisan foreign policy advisory board when she was Secretary of State, has deep neocon roots. ..."
"... A month before the Heilbrunn piece, the Times profiled Kagan ( ..."
"... ), who was critical of Obama's foreign policy, but supported Clinton. "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy," Kagan told the Times. "If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that." ... ..."
"... Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton? http://nyti.ms/1qJ4eLN ..."
"... Robert Kagan Strikes a Nerve With Article on Obama Policy http://nyti.ms/UEuqtB ..."
"... doublethink has become synonymous with relieving cognitive dissonance by ignoring the contradiction between two world views – or even of deliberately seeking to relieve cognitive dissonance. (Wikipedia) ..."
...Europe was not in great shape before the refugee crisis and the terrorist attacks. The prolonged
Eurozone crisis eroded the legitimacy of European political institutions and the centrist parties
that run them, while weakening the economies of key European powers. The old troika-Britain, France
and Germany-that used to provide leadership on the continent and with whom the U.S. worked most closely
to set the global agenda is no more. Britain is a pale shadow of its former self. Once the indispensable
partner for the U.S., influential in both Washington and Brussels, the mediator between America and
Europe, Britain is now unmoored, drifting away from both. The Labor Party, once led by Tony Blair,
is now headed by an anti-American pacifist, while the ruling Conservative government boasts of its
"very special relationship" with China.
... ... ...
There is a Russian angle, too. Many of these parties, and even some mainstream political movements
across the continent, are funded by Russia and make little secret of their affinity for Moscow. Thus
Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has praised "illiberalism" and made common ideological cause
with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Germany, a whole class of businesspeople, politicians,
and current and former government officials, led by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, presses constantly
for normalized relations with Moscow. It sometimes seems, in Germany
and perhaps in all of Europe, as if the only person standing in the way of full alliance with Russia
is German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Now the Syrian crisis has further bolstered Russia's position. Although Europeans generally share
Washington's discomfort with Moscow's support for Mr. Assad and Russia's bombing of moderate Syrian
rebels, in the wake of the Paris attacks, any plausible partner in the fight against Islamic State
seems worth enlisting. In France, former President Nicolas Sarkozy has long been an advocate for
Russia, but now his calls for partnership with Moscow are echoed by President François Hollande,
who seeks a "grand coalition" with Russia to fight Islamic State.
Where does the U.S. fit into all this? The Europeans no longer know, any more than American allies
in the Middle East do. Most Europeans still like Mr. Obama. After President George W. Bush and the
Iraq war, Europeans have gotten the kind of American president they wanted.
But in the current crisis, this new, more restrained and intensely cautious post-Iraq America has
less to offer than the old superpower, with all its arrogance and belligerence.
The flip side of European pleasure at America's newfound Venusian outlook is the perception, widely
shared around the world, that the U.S. is a declining superpower, and that even if it is not objectively
weaker than it once was, its leaders' willingness to deploy power on behalf of its interests, and
on behalf of the West, has greatly diminished. As former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer
recently put it, the U.S. "quite obviously, is no longer willing-or able-to play its old role."
Mr. Fischer was referring specifically to America's role as the dominant power in the Middle East,
but since the refugee crisis and the attacks in Paris, America's unwillingness to play that role
has reverberations and implications well beyond the Middle East. What the U.S. now does or doesn't
do in Syria will affect the future stability of Europe, the strength of trans-Atlantic relations
and therefore the well-being of the liberal world order.
This is no doubt the last thing that Mr. Obama wants to hear, and possibly to believe. Certainly
he would not deny that the stakes have gone up since the refugee crisis and especially since Paris.
At the very least, Islamic State has proven both its desire and its ability to carry out massive,
coordinated attacks in a major European city. It is not unthinkable that it could carry out a similar
attack in an American city. This is new.
... ... ...
In 2002, a British statesman-scholar issued a quiet warning. "The challenge to the postmodern
world," the diplomat Robert Cooper argued, was that while Europeans might operate within their borders
as if power no longer mattered, in the world outside Europe, they needed to be prepared to use force
just as in earlier eras. "Among ourselves, we keep the law, but when we are operating in the jungle,
we must also use the laws of the jungle," he wrote. Europeans didn't heed this warning, or at least
didn't heed it sufficiently. They failed to arm themselves for the jungle, materially and spiritually,
and now that the jungle has entered the European garden, they are at a loss.
With the exercise of power barely an option, despite what Mr. Hollande promises, Europeans are
likely to feel their only choice is to build fences, both within Europe and along its periphery-even
if in the process they destroy the very essence of the European project. It is this sentiment that
has the Le Pens of Europe soaring in the polls.
What would such an effort look like? First, it would require establishing a safe zone in Syria,
providing the millions of would-be refugees still in the country a place to stay and the hundreds
of thousands who have fled to Europe a place to which to return. To establish such a zone, American
military officials estimate, would require not only U.S. air power but ground forces numbering up
to 30,000. Once the safe zone was established, many of those troops could be replaced by forces from
Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, but the initial force would have to be largely
American.
In addition, a further 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops would be required to uproot Islamic State
from the haven it has created in Syria and to help local forces uproot it in Iraq. Many of those
troops could then be replaced by NATO and other international forces to hold the territory and provide
a safe zone for rebuilding the areas shattered by Islamic State rule.
At the same time, an internationally negotiated and blessed process of transition in Syria should
take place, ushering the bloodstained Mr. Assad from power and establishing a new provisional government
to hold nationwide elections. The heretofore immovable Mr. Assad would face an entirely new set of
military facts on the ground, with the Syrian opposition now backed by U.S. forces and air power,
the Syrian air force grounded and Russian bombing halted. Throughout the transition period, and probably
beyond even the first rounds of elections, an international peacekeeping force-made up of French,
Turkish, American and other NATO forces as well as Arab troops-would have to remain in Syria until
a reasonable level of stability, security and inter-sectarian trust was achieved.
Is such a plan so unthinkable? In recent years, the mere mention of
U.S. ground troops has been enough to stop any conversation. Americans, or at least
the intelligentsia and political class, remain traumatized by Iraq, and all calculations about what
to do in Syria have been driven by that trauma. Mr. Obama's advisers have been reluctant to present
him with options that include even smaller numbers of ground forces, assuming that he would reject
them. And Mr. Obama has, in turn, rejected his advisers' less ambitious proposals on the reasonable
grounds that they would probably be insufficient.
This dynamic has kept the president sneering at those who have wanted to do more but have been
reluctant to be honest about how much more. But it has also allowed him to be comfortable settling
for minimal, pressure-relieving approaches that he must know cannot succeed but which at least have
the virtue of avoiding the much larger commitment that he has so far refused to make.
The president has also been inclined to reject options that don't promise to "solve" the problems
of Syria, Iraq and the Middle East. He doesn't want to send troops only to put "a lid on things."
In this respect, he is entranced, like most Americans, by the image of the decisive engagement
followed by the victorious return home. But that happy picture is a myth. Even after the iconic American
victory in World War II, the U.S. didn't come home. Keeping a lid on things is exactly what the U.S.
has done these past 70 years. That is how the U.S. created this liberal world order.
In Asia, American forces have kept a lid on what had been, and would likely be again, a dangerous
multisided conflict involving China, Japan, Korea, India and who knows who else. In Europe, American
forces put a lid on what had been a chronic state of insecurity and war, making it possible to lay
the foundations of the European Union. In the Balkans, the presence of U.S. and European troops has
kept a lid on what had been an escalating cycle of ethnic conflict. In Libya, a similar international
force, with even a small American contingent, could have kept the lid on that country's boiling caldron,
perhaps long enough to give a new, more inclusive government a chance.
Preserving a liberal world order and international security is all about placing lids on regions
of turmoil. In any case, as my Brookings Institution colleague Thomas Wright observes, whether or
not you want to keep a lid on something really ought to depend on what's under the lid.
At practically any other time in the last 70 years, the idea of dispatching even 50,000 troops
to fight an organization of Islamic State's description would not have seemed too risky or too costly
to most Americans. In 1990-91, President George H.W. Bush, now revered as a judicious and prudent
leader, sent half a million troops across the globe to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, a country that not
one American in a million could find on a map and which the U.S. had no obligation to defend. In
1989, he sent 30,000 troops to invade Panama to topple an illegitimate, drug-peddling dictator. During
the Cold War, when presidents sent more than 300,000 troops to Korea and more than 500,000 troops
to Vietnam, the idea of sending 50,000 troops to fight a large and virulently anti-American terrorist
organization that had seized territory in the Middle East, and from that territory had already launched
a murderous attack on a major Western city, would have seemed barely worth an argument.
Not today. Americans remain paralyzed by Iraq, Republicans almost
as much as Democrats, and Mr. Obama is both the political beneficiary and the living symbol of this
paralysis. Whether he has the desire or capacity to adjust to changing circumstances is an open question.
Other presidents have-from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton-each
of whom was forced to recalibrate what the loss or fracturing of Europe would mean to American interests.
In Mr. Obama's case, however, such a late-in-the-game recalculation seems less likely. He may be
the first president since the end of World War II who simply doesn't care what happens to Europe.
If so, it is, again, a great irony for Europe, and perhaps a tragic one. Having excoriated the
U.S. for invading Iraq, Europeans played no small part in bringing on the crisis of confidence and
conscience that today prevents Americans from doing what may be necessary to meet the Middle Eastern
crisis that has Europe reeling. Perhaps there are Europeans today wishing that the U.S. will not
compound its error of commission in Iraq by making an equally unfortunate error of omission in Syria.
They can certainly hope.
Mr. Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "Of Paradise and
Power: America and Europe in the New World Order" and, most recently, "The World America Made."
You'd think ppl who brought the Iraq war, the best recruiters of ISIS, would be nowhere to
be seen; but no, are telling how to deal w/ISIS.
ilsm said in reply to anne...
Narrative is the foundation of their skewed analysis. Their object is to sell perpetual
war using super high tech, exquisitely expensive, contractor maintained versions of WW II formations
to expired resources eternally for the profits they deliver. They starve the safety net to pay
for their income security.
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to anne...
Neoconservativism Is Down But Not Out of the 2016 Race
... In July of last year, the New York Times ran two pieces tying Clinton to the neoconservative
movement. In "The Next Act of the Neocons," (*) Jacob Heilbrunn argued that neocons like historian
Robert Kagan are putting their lot in with Clinton in an effort to stay relevant while the GOP
shies away from its past interventionism and embraces politicians like Senator Rand Paul:
'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.'
(The story also notes, prematurely, that the careers of older neocons like Wolfowitz are "permanently
buried in the sands of Iraq.")
Kagan served on Clinton's bipartisan foreign policy advisory board when she was Secretary
of State, has deep neocon roots. He was part of the Project for a New American Century, a
now-defunct think tank that spanned much of the second Bush presidency and supported a "Reaganite
policy of military strength and moral clarity." PNAC counted Kagan, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld,
William Kristol, and Jeb Bush among its members. In 1998, some of its members-including Wolfowitz,
Kagan, and Rumsfeld-signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton asking him to remove Saddam
Hussein from power.
A month before the Heilbrunn piece, the Times profiled Kagan (#),
who was critical of Obama's foreign policy, but supported Clinton. "I feel comfortable with her
on foreign policy," Kagan told the Times. "If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue
… it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going
to call it that." ...
(I may be a HRC supporter but Neocons still make me anxious.)
'doublethink has become synonymous with relieving cognitive dissonance by ignoring the
contradiction between two world views – or even of deliberately seeking to relieve cognitive dissonance.'
(Wikipedia)
Last month, US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard went on CNN and laid bare Washington's Syria strategy.
In a remarkably candid interview with Wolf Blitzer, Gabbard calls Washington's effort
to oust Assad "counterproductive" and "illegal" before taking it a step further and accusing the
CIA of arming the very same terrorists who The White House insists are "sworn enemies."
In short, Gabbard all but tells the American public that the government is lying to them and may
end up inadvertently starting "World War III."
All this neoliberal talk about "maximizing shareholder value" and hidden redistribution mechanism
of wealth up. It;s all about executive pay. "Shareholder value" is nothing then a ruse for
getting outsize bonuses but top execs. Who cares if the company will be destroyed if you have a golden
parachute ?
Notable quotes:
"... IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. ..."
"... Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it. ..."
"... Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period. ..."
"... This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion, against their combined net income of $847 billion. ..."
"... Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery. ..."
"... Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs. A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income is declining. ..."
"... But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered. ..."
"... Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s). ..."
"... On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement? ..."
"... "Results of all this financial engineering? Revenues of the S P 500 companies are falling for the fourth quarter in a row – the worst such spell since the Financial Crisis." ..."
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist,
and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at
Wolf Street.
Magic trick turns into toxic mix.
Stocks have been on a tear to nowhere this year. Now investors are praying for a Santa rally to
pull them out of the mire. They're counting on desperate amounts of share buybacks that companies
fund by loading up on debt. But the magic trick that had performed miracles over the past few years
is backfiring.
And there's a reason.
IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested
in capital expenditures and R&D. It's staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining
for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. And its stock is
down 38% since March 2013.
Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade,
compared to $82 billion in R&D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks
and dividends, and $30 billion on R&D and capital expenditures. They're all doing it.
"Activist investors" – hedge funds – have been clamoring for it. An investigative report by Reuters,
titled
The Cannibalized Company, lined some of them up:
In March, General Motors Co acceded to a $5 billion share buyback to satisfy investor Harry
Wilson. He had threatened a proxy fight if the auto maker didn't distribute some of the $25 billion
cash hoard it had built up after emerging from bankruptcy just a few years earlier.
DuPont early this year announced a $4 billion buyback program – on top of a $5 billion program
announced a year earlier – to beat back activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management,
which was seeking four board seats to get its way.
In March, Qualcomm Inc., under pressure from hedge fund Jana Partners, agreed to boost its
program to purchase $10 billion of its shares over the next 12 months; the company already had
an existing $7.8 billion buyback program and a commitment to return three quarters of its free
cash flow to shareholders.
And in July, Qualcomm announced 5,000 layoffs. It's hard to innovate when you're trying to please
a hedge fund.
CEOs with a long-term outlook and a focus on innovation and investment, rather than financial
engineering, come under intense pressure.
"None of it is optional; if you ignore them, you go away," Russ Daniels, a tech executive with
15 years at Apple and 13 years at HP, told Reuters. "It's all just resource allocation," he said.
"The situation right now is there are a lot of investors who believe that they can make a better
decision about how to apply that resource than the management of the business can."
Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged
in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income
for the first time in a non-recession period.
This year, for the 613 companies that have reported earnings for fiscal 2015, share buybacks
hit a record $520 billion. They also paid $365 billion in dividends, for a total of $885 billion,
against their combined net income of $847 billion.
Buybacks and dividends amount to 113% of capital spending among companies that have repurchased
shares since 2010, up from 60% in 2000 and from 38% in 1990. Corporate investment is normally a big
driver in a recovery. Not this time! Hence the lousy recovery.
Financial engineering takes precedence over actual engineering in the minds of CEOs and CFOs.
A company buying its own shares creates additional demand for those shares. It's supposed to drive
up the share price. The hoopla surrounding buyback announcements drives up prices too. Buybacks also
reduce the number of outstanding shares, thus increase the earnings per share, even when net income
is declining.
"Serving customers, creating innovative new products, employing workers, taking care of the
environment … are NOT the objectives of firms," sais Itzhak Ben-David, a finance professor of
Ohio State University, a buyback proponent, according to Reuters. "These are components in the
process that have the goal of maximizing shareholders' value."
But when companies load up on debt to fund buybacks while slashing investment in productive
activities and innovation, it has consequences for revenues down the road. And now that magic trick
to increase shareholder value has become a toxic mix. Shares of buyback queens are getting hammered.
Citigroup credit analysts looked into the extent to which this is happening – and why. Christine
Hughes, Chief Investment Strategist at
OtterWood Capital, summarized the Citi report this way: "This dynamic of borrowing from
bondholders to pay shareholders may be coming to an end…."
Their chart (via OtterWood Capital) shows that about half of the cumulative outperformance of
these buyback queens from 2012 through 2014 has been frittered away this year, as their shares, IBM-like,
have swooned...
... ... ...
Selected Skeptical Comments
Mbuna, November 21, 2015 at 7:31 am
Me thinks Wolf is slightly barking up the wrong tree here. What needs to be looked at is how
buy backs affect executive pay. "Shareholder value" is more often than not a ruse?
ng, November 21, 2015 at 8:58 am
probably, in some or most cases, but the effect on the stock is the same.
Alejandro, November 21, 2015 at 9:19 am
Interesting that you mention ruse, relating to "buy-backs"…from my POV, it seems like they've
legalized insider trading or engineered (a) loophole(s).
On a somewhat related perspective on subterfuge. The language of "affordability" has proven
to be insidiously clever. Not only does it reinforce and perpetuate the myth of "deserts", but
camouflages the means of embezzling the means of distribution. Isn't distribution, really, the
only rational purpose of finance, i.e., as a means of distribution as opposed to a means of embezzlement?
Jim, November 21, 2015 at 10:42 am
More nuance and less dogma please. The dogmatic tone really hurts what could otherwise be a
fine but more-qualified position.
"Results of all this financial engineering? Revenues of the S&P 500 companies are falling
for the fourth quarter in a row – the worst such spell since the Financial Crisis."
Eh, no. No question that buybacks *can* be asset-stripping and often are, but unless you tie capital
allocation decisions closer to investment in the business such that they're mutually exclusive,
this is specious and a reach. No one invests if they can't see the return. It would be just as
easy to say that they're buying back stock because revenue is slipping and they have no other
investment opportunities.
Revenues are falling in large part because these largest companies derive an ABSOLUTELY HUGE portion
of their business overseas and the dollar has been ridiculously strong in the last 12-15 months.
Rates are poised to rise, and the easy Fed-inspired rate arbitrage vis a vis stocks and "risk
on" trade are closing. How about a little more context instead of just dogma?
John Malone made a career out of financial engineering, something like 30% annual returns for
the 25 years of his CEO tenure at TCI. Buybacks were a huge part of that.
Perhaps an analysis of the monopolistic positions of so many American businesses that allow them
the wherewithal to underinvest and still buy back huge amounts of stock? If we had a more competitive
economy, companies would have less ability to underinvest. Ultimately, I think buybacks are more
a result than a cause of dysfunction, but certainly not always bad.
"... Can courage trump careerism? I believe that for the forseeable future the answer is "No". People are highly incentivized to take the path of least resistance and simply go along to get along. ..."
"... It would be wrong to excuse the inaction of the Obama DOJ and SEC crews as being the result of some larger "corrosion of our collective values." The capos in those crews are the people doing the corroding, and not one of them was forced to (not) do what they did. Notice that every last one of the initial bunch is presently being paid, by Wall Street, to the tune of millions of dollars per year. They opted to cover up crimes and take a pay-off in exchange. And they are owed punishment. ..."
I'm embedding the text of a short but must-read speech by
Robert Jenkins, a former banker, hedge fund manager, and regulator (Bank of England) who is now
a Senior Fellow at Better Markets. If nothing else, be sure to look at the partial list of bank misconduct
and activities currently under investigation.
Jenkins points out that regulatory reform has fallen
short on multiple fronts, and perhaps the most important is courage. Readers may understandably object
to him giving lip service to the idea that Bernanke acted courageously during the crisis (serving
the needs of banks via unconventional means is not tantamount to courage), but he is a Serious Person,
and making a case against Bernanke would detract from his bigger message about the lack of guts post-crisis.
Now there have been exceptions, like Benjamin Lawsky, Sheila Bair, Gary Gensler, Kara Stein, and
in a more insider capacity, Danny Tarullo. Contrast their examples with the typical cronyism and
lame rationalizations for inaction, particularly by the Department of Justice and the SEC. It's not
obvious how to reverse the corrosion of our collective values. But it is important to remember than
norms can shift much faster than most people think possible, with, for instance, the 1950s followed
by the radicalism and shifts in social values of the 1960s, which conservative elements are still
fighting to roll back.
We do not live in an economy or a polity that breeds or rewards the kind of public-mindedness
and civic virtue that gives you courage. The author thinks the system needs courageous people,
but posits no conception of where they would come from and how they would thrive in the current
system (news flash: they won't). So this is a classic "I see the problem clearly but can't see
that the solution is impossible under the current system" piece.
TMock
Agreed.
For those who desire real solutions, try this…
The Universal Principles of Sustainable Development
In Tavis Smiley's book, My Journey with Maya Angelou, he recounts an ongoing discussion the
two of them entertained throughout the years concerning which trait, Love or Courage, was more
important in realizing a full life. Angelou argued that acting courageously was the most important.
Smiley saw love as the moving force. While important and moving, the discussion has the dead-end
quality of not being able to move past the current system of injustice. I say this because in
the end, both support incremental change to the existing system as the means to bring about social
justice. The powerful elite have perfected the manipulation of incremental change to render it
powerless.
When trying to change a social system, courage is needed. Courage to form a vision of the future
that is based on public-mindedness and civic virtues that bring justice into the world. Our current
leaders are delivering the exact opposite of civic justice. Its time to call them out on their
duplicity, and ignore their vision of the future.
The courage that is needed today is not the courage to stand up to the criminals running things
and somehow make them change. It is the courage to make them irrelevant. Change will come from
the bottom up, one person at a time.
cnchal
And when one shows up, look what happens.
The disturbing fact is that laws have been broken but law breaking has not touched
senior management.
If they knew, then they were complicit. If they did not, then they were incompetent. Alternatively,
if the deserving dozens have indeed been banned from the field let the list be known – that we
might see some of that "professional ostracism" of which Governor Carney speaks. One person
who did lose his position and quite publicly at that was Martin Wheatley, the UK's
courageous conduct enforcer.
Meanwhile the chairman of Europe's largest bank, Douglas Flint at HSBC, remains
in situ – despite having been on the board since 1995; despite having signed off on the
acquisition of Household Finance; and despite having had oversight of tax entangled subsidiaries
in Switzerland and money laundering units in Mexico. Oh, and you'll love this: the recently retired
CEO of Standard Chartered is reportedly an advisor to Her Majesty's Government. Standard Chartered
was among the first to be investigated for violations of rogue regime sanctions. The bank
was fined heavily and may be so again.
Courageous people get fired, which leads to no courageous people left.
GlassHammer
Can courage trump careerism? I believe that for the forseeable future the answer is "No". People are highly incentivized
to take the path of least resistance and simply go along to get along.
susan the other
By extreme necessity (created by total dysfunction) we will probably wind up with planned and
coordinated economies that do not rely on speculation & credit to come up with the next great
idea. Those ideas will be forced to come from the top down. And the problems of unregulated capitalism
frantically chumming for inspiration and extreme profits will shrink back down from a world-eating
monster to just a fox or two.
Oliver Budde
It would be wrong to excuse the inaction of the Obama DOJ and SEC crews as being the result
of some larger "corrosion of our collective values." The capos in those crews are the people doing
the corroding, and not one of them was forced to (not) do what they did. Notice that every last
one of the initial bunch is presently being paid, by Wall Street, to the tune of millions of dollars
per year. They opted to cover up crimes and take a pay-off in exchange. And they are owed punishment.
Malcolm MacLeod, MD
Oliver: I believe that you hit the nail on the head, and
I wholeheartedly agree.
"... The biggest market in the world today is derivatives, money making money without a useful product or service in sight. With the market in derivatives being ten times larger than global GDP we can see that making useful products and providing useful services is nearly irrelevant even today. ..."
"... "When Capitalism reaches its zenith, everyone will be an investor and no one will be doing anything." ..."
"... This problem of debt vs income seems to reflect the ongoing financialization (extraction, not to be confused with financing) of the global economy rather than a focus on capital development of people and the social and productive infrastructure. ..."
"... The "new model" was inefficient (too many fingers in the pie, all of them extracting value), highly risky (often Ponzi finance from the beginning with reverse amortization), and critically dependent on rising home prices. Even leaving aside the pervasive fraud, the model was diametrically opposed to the public interest, that is, the promotion of the capital development of the economy. It left behind whole neighborhoods of abandoned homes as well as new home developments that could not be sold. ..."
"... In my understanding, the Great Depression was an implosion of the credit system after a period of over investment in productive capacity. The investors failing to pay the workers enough to buy the extra goods produced. The projected returns never materialised to pay back the debt… Boom! ..."
"... China still has implicit state control of the banking sector, they may still have the political will to make any bad debt disappear with the puff of a fountain pen. That option is always available to a sovereign. ..."
"... They specialized in mass production the way agribusiness has here, where the production is not where the consumption is. It's as if all the pig farmers of North Carolina and corn growers in Iowa woke up one morning and found out that the people of the Eastern Seaboard had all been put on a starvation diet. The economic results in the grain belt would not be pretty. Ditto China. ..."
"... Except that China ain't Iowa, they can create a middle class as big as Europe and US combined. ..."
"... It's just anathema for the ruling class to give the little guys a break. ..."
"... The global glut of oil and other resources can't just be attributed to rising production in "tight oil". Somehow the Powers that be are hiding a great deal of economic contraction. If the world economy were growing it would need oil, copper, lead, zinc, wood and wood pulp, gold, and other metals as inputs. What I want to know is the extent of the cover-up, and what the global economy really looks like. ..."
"... We are not competent to forecast the future yet. Even the weather surprises us. Its also the case that people who do have relevant data are quite likely to convert that into profit rather than share it. ..."
"... It's the collapse of bonded warehouse copper/aluminum/etc. lending frauds and all that rehypothecation. I don't think it's just a problem in end demand. It's a problem in the derivatives/futures market. ..."
"... Here is a very good case study for why people are always wrong about economy and markets. What happen to all the currency manipulators like Paul Krugman? ..."
We shouldn't be too surprised at falling commodity prices.
Using raw materials to make real things is all very 20th Century, financial engineering is
the stuff of the 21st Century.
When Capitalism reaches its zenith, everyone will be an investor and no one will be doing anything.
Central Bank inflated asset bubbles will provide for all.
The biggest market in the world today is derivatives, money making money without a useful product
or service in sight. With the market in derivatives being ten times larger than global GDP we can see that making
useful products and providing useful services is nearly irrelevant even today.
"When Capitalism reaches its zenith, everyone will be an investor and no one will be doing
anything."
+1000
Ah, that glorious day when we're all rich, rich, RICHer than Midas from interest, dividends, and
rents!!!
Just to amuse myself, I intend to be a dog poop scooper – and pick up some pocket change of 1
million dollars a poop…
This problem of debt vs income seems to reflect the ongoing financialization (extraction,
not to be confused with financing) of the global economy rather than a focus on capital development
of people and the social and productive infrastructure.
I liked how Wray and Mazzucato linked the two in their Mack the Turtle analogy.
"Underlying all of this financialization was the homeowner's income-something like Dr. Seuss's
King Yertle the Turtle-with layer upon layer of financial instruments, all of which were supported
by Mack the turtle's mortgage payments. The system collapsed because Mack fell delinquent on payments
he could not possibly have met: the house was overpriced (and the mortgage could have been for
more than 100% of the price!), the mortgage terms were too unfavorable, the fees collected by
all the links in the home mortgage finance food chain were too large, Mack had to take a cut of
pay and hours as the economy slowed, and the late fees piled up (fraudulently, in many cases as
mortgage servicers "lost" payments).
The "new model" was inefficient (too many fingers in the
pie, all of them extracting value), highly risky (often Ponzi finance from the beginning with
reverse amortization), and critically dependent on rising home prices. Even leaving aside the
pervasive fraud, the model was diametrically opposed to the public interest, that is, the promotion
of the capital development of the economy. It left behind whole neighborhoods of abandoned homes
as well as new home developments that could not be sold."
Interesting, the supposition here is that China is heading for a depression similar to the
Great Depression.
In my understanding, the Great Depression was an implosion of the credit system after a period
of over investment in productive capacity. The investors failing to pay the workers enough to
buy the extra goods produced. The projected returns never materialised to pay back the debt… Boom!
China could well be headed down that road, there isn't enough money getting into the pockets
of ordinary Chinese that's for sure. Elites everywhere just can't bring themselves to give a break
for those at the bottom.
China still has implicit state control of the banking sector, they may still have the political
will to make any bad debt disappear with the puff of a fountain pen. That option is always available
to a sovereign.
Then again they may just realize in time, someone needs to be paid to buy all the junk.
They were counting on us and the Europeans, but we've let them down. The race to the bottom
erased the global middle class that could buy Chinese consumer products.
They specialized in mass
production the way agribusiness has here, where the production is not where the consumption is.
It's as if all the pig farmers of North Carolina and corn growers in Iowa woke up one morning
and found out that the people of the Eastern Seaboard had all been put on a starvation diet. The
economic results in the grain belt would not be pretty. Ditto China.
The global glut of oil and other resources can't just be attributed to rising production in
"tight oil". Somehow the Powers that be are hiding a great deal of economic contraction. If the
world economy were growing it would need oil, copper, lead, zinc, wood and wood pulp, gold, and
other metals as inputs. What I want to know is the extent of the cover-up, and what the global
economy really looks like.
Where were you in 2011? I was here reading NC. One of the Links posted was a graph of the abrupt
shutdown of China's economy – It was a cliffscape.
Very long vertical drop off. So dramatic I
could hardly believe it and I said I was having trouble catching my breath. Another commenter
said it looked like a tsunami. Of exported deflation as it turns out.
Things have been extreme
since 2007 when the banksters began to fall; 2008 when Lehman crashed (just after the Beijing
Olympics, how convenient for China…) and credit shut down. China was doin' just fine until then.
In spite of the irrational mess in global capitalist eonomix.
The only way to remedy it was to
shut it down I guess. That's really not very fine-tuned for a system the whole world relies on,
is it?
Proceeds from the laughable assumption that official China economic numbers 'may not be as
reliable as we'd like' rather than being 'persistently and hugely faked,' (especially during slowdowns)
and ignores that the housing-market slowdown and huge unsold-RE-overhang will also necessarily
be accompanied by a price crash, hence a huge amount of toxic debt being exposed – really basic
boom/bust dynamics.
And no demographic boom coming to the rescue, either. (But he does repeatedly
invoke the magic 'service economy boom' mantra mentioned by Ilargi.) Thankfully most of the commenters
rightly take the author to task.
Firstly, its only China's buying that stops oil falling even further Sr Ilargi.
Secondly its a Peoples' Republic – employment must be maintained.
We are not competent to forecast the future yet. Even the weather surprises us. Its also the
case that people who do have relevant data are quite likely to convert that into profit rather
than share it.
Received a small airmail parcel today containing some replacement attachments for my Dremel
moto-tool … package was addressed from Shenzen, specifically the "Fuming Manufacturing Park".
It's the collapse of bonded warehouse copper/aluminum/etc. lending frauds and all that rehypothecation.
I don't think it's just a problem in end demand. It's a problem in the derivatives/futures market.
Here is a very good case study for why people are always wrong about economy and markets. What happen to all the currency manipulators like Paul Krugman?
"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as
well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them.
Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape,
and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Tacitus, Agricola
People are discouraged and disillusioned after almost thirty years of distorted governance, specially
in the aftermath of the 'Hope and Change' which quickly became 'Vain Hope for Change.'
Most cannot admit that their guys were in the pockets of Big Defense, Big Pharma, Big Energy, and
Wall Street.
The real question about Hillary comes down to this. Can you trust her to do what she
says she will do, the right things for her putative constituents and not her big money donors and
paymasters, once she takes office?
Or will that poor family who left the White House 'broke' and then mysteriously obtained a fortune
of over $100 million in the following years, thanks to enormous payments for 'speeches' from large
financial firms and huge donations to their Trust once again take care of the hand that pays them
the most?
This is not to say that there is a better alternative amongst the leading Republican candidates,
who have been and are still under the same types of payment arrangements, only with different people
signing the checks.
Or we could skip the middlemen entirely and just directly elect one of New York's most prominent
of their narcissist class directly, instead of another witless stooge of big money, and hope for
something different? And how will that likely work out for us?
It is an exceptionally hard time to be a human being in this great nation of ours.
And so what ought we to do? Wallow in cynicism and the sweet sickness of misanthropy and despair?
Vote strictly on the hope of our own narrow self-interest no matter the broader and longer term consequences,
and then face the inevitable blowback from injustice and repression?
Give up on our grandchildren and children because we are too tired and interested in our own short
term comfort? Too filled with selfishness, anger and hate to see straight, and do anything
but turn ourselves into mindless animals to escape the pain of being truly human? Do no thinking,
and just follow orders? This latter impulse has taken whole nations of desperate people into the
abyss.
Or do we stop wallowing in our specialness and self-pity, and 'stand on the shoulders of giants'
and confront what virtually every generation and every individual has had to wrestle with since the
beginning of recorded time?
Do we fall, finally stricken with grief in our blindness, on the road to Damascus and say at long
last, 'Lord, what then wilt thou have me to do?'
This is the question that circumstance is posing to us. And hopefully we will we heed the answer
that has been already given, to be 'steadfast, unshaken, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that in Him our labor is not in vain.'
And the touchstone of the alloy of our actions is love.
And so we have before us what Franklin Roosevelt so aptly characterized as our own 'rendezvous with
destiny.'
"... When it comes to the hubris of corporate chief financial officers, who have been more than happy leveraging up balance sheets in order to reward shareholders, the analysts didn't mince words. We find that corporate CFOs historically are inherently backward-looking when setting corporate financing decisions, relying on past extrapolations of economic activity, even when current market pricing suggests future investment returns may be lower, they wrote. ..."
"... That leaves downgrades by credit-rating agencies as one catalyst that could spark a turn in the cycle; downgrades of corporate credit have already exceeded upgrades this year at some of the bond graders. ..."
"... Might the rating agencies spoil the party? they asked. In the end we believe strong economic interests will overwhelm rationale considerations. Rating agencies remain heavily dependent on new issuance activity, face significant competitive pressures (as issuers will select two of three ratings) and appear unconcerned with where we are in the credit cycle (e.g., see Moody's latest conference call). ..."
"... With UBS having taken all those potential catalysts firmly off the table, that leaves just fundamentals to worry about. Who, for the past few years, has been worrying about those? [Sarcasm? - Editor] ..."
It's no secret that companies have been taking advantage of years of low interest rates to
sell cheap debt to eager investors, locking in lower funding costs that have allowed them to go
on a spree of share buybacks and mergers and acquisitions.
With fresh evidence that investors are becoming more discerning when it comes to corporate credit
as they approach the first interest rate rise in the U.S. in almost a decade, it's worth asking
whether anything might stop the trend of companies assuming more and more debt on their balance
sheets.
... ... ...
For a start, they note that higher funding costs are unlikely to dissuade companies from
continuing to tap the debt market since, even after a rate hike, financing costs will remain near
historic lows. "The predominant reason is the Fed[eral Reserve] is anchoring low interest rates,"
the analysts wrote.
When it comes to the hubris of corporate chief financial officers, who have been more than
happy leveraging up balance sheets in order to reward shareholders, the analysts didn't mince
words. "We find that corporate CFOs historically are inherently backward-looking when setting
corporate financing decisions, relying on past extrapolations of economic activity, even when
current market pricing suggests future investment returns may be lower," they wrote.
"Several management teams have been on the road indicating higher funding costs of up to 100 to
200 basis points would not impede attractive M&A deals, in their view."
Higher market volatility has often been cited as one factor that could knock the corporate
credit market off its seat...
That leaves downgrades by credit-rating agencies as one catalyst that could spark a turn
in the cycle; downgrades of corporate credit have already exceeded upgrades this year at some of
the bond graders. Here, Mish and Caprio offered some stunningly blunt words. "Might the
rating agencies spoil the party?" they asked. "In the end we believe strong economic interests
will overwhelm rationale considerations. Rating agencies remain heavily dependent on new issuance
activity, face significant competitive pressures (as issuers will select two of three ratings)
and appear unconcerned with where we are in the credit cycle (e.g., see Moody's latest conference
call)."
With UBS having taken all those potential catalysts firmly off the table, that leaves just
fundamentals to worry about. Who, for the past few years, has been worrying about those?
[Sarcasm? - Editor]
"Bottom line, we struggle to envision an end to the releveraging phenomenon-absent a
substantial correction in corporate earnings and/or broader risk assets," concluded the UBS
analysts.
"... Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the
intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt and
its entire system is coming down. ..."
"... EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putins bid for the Presidency,
and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil. ..."
"... In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against
the Russian government as authoritarian, dictators, and so forth. She said, The trend lines for freedom
and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power and set about
the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state. She announced at
that point that the elections would be illegitimate: [T]he current regime will likely use the upcoming
parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March 2012 with the inevitable
falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its rule. ..."
"... The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy,
from which perch she has spread Cold War venom against Putin and the Russian government. ..."
"... Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that
the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East, in
2000-08. ..."
"... NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online anti-corruption activist and
cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on the street, Navalny sounds more like
Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist found him reminiscent of either Hitler,
or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic. Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow. ..."
January 9, 2012 -Organizers of the December 2011 "anti-vote-fraud" demonstrations in Moscow have
announced Feb. 4 as the date of their next street action, planned as a march around the city's Garden
Ring Road on the 22nd anniversary of a mass demonstration which paved the way to the end of the Soviet
Union. While there is a fluid situation within both the Russian extraparliamentary opposition layers,
and the ruling circles and other Duma parties, including a process of "dialogue" between them, in
which ex-Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is playing a role, it is clear that British imperial interests
are intent on-if not actually destroying Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's bid for reelection as Russia's
President in the March 4 elections-casting Russia into ongoing, destructive political turmoil.
Lyndon LaRouche has observed that anybody acting according to this British agenda with the
intention of coming out on top is a fool, since the British financial-political empire is bankrupt
and its entire system is coming down.
Review of the events leading up to the Dec. 4, 2011 Duma elections, which the street demonstrators
demanded be cancelled for fraud, shows that not only agent-of-British-influence Mikhail Gorbachov,
the ex-Soviet President, but also the vast Project Democracy apparatus inside the United States,
exposed by EIR in the 1980s as part of an unconstitutional "secret government,"[1]
have been on full mobilization to block the current Russian leadership from continuing in power.
Project Democracy
Typical is the testimony of Nadia Diuk, vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), before the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs
last July 26. The NED is the umbrella of Project Democracy; it functions, inclusively, through the
International Republican Institute (IRI, linked with the Republican Party) and the National Democratic
Institute (NDI, linked with the Democratic Party, and currently headed by Madeleine Albright).
Diuk was educated at the U.K.'s Unversity of Sussex Russian studies program, and then taught at
Oxford University, before coming to the U.S.A. to head up the NED's programs in Eastern Europe and
Russia beginning 1990. She is married to her frequent co-author, Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic
Institute, who headed up the private intelligence outfit Freedom House[2]
for 12 years. Her role is typical of British outsourcing of key strategic operations to U.S. institutions.
EU: British imperial interests are intent on destroying Prime Minister Putin's bid for
the Presidency, and throwing Russia into deadly political turmoil.
In her testimony, Diuk came off like a reincarnation of a 1950s Cold Warrior, raving against
the Russian government as "authoritarian," "dictators," and so forth. She said, "The trend lines
for freedom and democracy in Russia have been unremittingly negative since Vladimir Putin took power
and set about the systematic construction of a representation of their interests within the state."
She announced at that point that the elections would be illegitimate: "[T]he current regime will
likely use the upcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011 and presidential election in March
2012 with the inevitable falsifications and manipulations, to claim the continued legitimacy of its
rule."
Diuk expressed renewed hope that the disastrous 2004 Orange Revolution experiment in Ukraine could
be replicated in Russia, claiming that "when the protests against authoritarian rule during Ukraine's
Orange Revolution brought down the government in 2004, Russian citizens saw a vision across the border
of an alternative future for themselves as a Slavic nation." She then detailed what she claimed were
the Kremlin's reactions to the events in Ukraine, charging that "the leaders in the Kremlin-always
the most creative innovators in the club of authoritarians-have also taken active measures to promote
support of the government and undermine the democratic opposition...."
Holos Ameryky
The British-educated Nadia Diuk is vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy,
from which perch she has spread "Cold War" venom against Putin and the Russian government.
While lauding "the democratic breakthroughs in the Middle East" in 2011, Diuk called on the Congress
to "look to [Eastern Europe] as the source of a great wealth of experience on how the enemies of
freedom are ever on the alert to assert their dominance, but also how the forces for freedom and
democracy will always find a way to push back in a struggle that demands our support."
In September, Diuk chaired an NED event featuring a representative of the NED-funded Levada Center
Russian polling organization, who gave an overview of the then-upcoming December 4 Duma election.
Also speaking there was Russian liberal politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who predicted in the nastiest
tones that Putin will suffer the fate of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. In this same September
period, Mikhail Gorbachov, too, was already forecasting voting irregularities and a challenge to
Putin's dominance.
The NED, which has an annual budget of $100 million, sponsors dozens of "civil society" groups
in Russia. Golos, the supposedly independent vote-monitoring group that declared there would be vote
fraud even before the elections took place, has received NED money through the NDI since 2000. Golos
had a piecework program, paying its observers a set amount of money for each reported voting irregularity.
NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny-the online anti-corruption activist and cult figure of
the December demonstrations-since 2006, when he and Maria Gaidar (daughter of the late London-trained
shock therapy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar) launched a youth debating project called "DA!" (meaning
"Yes!" or standing for "Democratic Alternative"). Gorbachov's close ally Vladimir Ryzhkov, currently
negotiating with Kudrin on terms of a "dialogue between the authorities and the opposition," also
received NED grants to his World Movement for Democracy.
Besides George Soros's Open Society Foundations (formerly, Open Society Institute, OSI), the biggest
source of funds for this meddling, including funding which was channeled through the NDI and the
IRI, is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Officially, USAID has spent $2.6 billion
on programs in Russia since 1992. The current acknowledged level is around $70 million annually,
of which nearly half is for "Governing Justly & Democratically" programs, another 30% for "Information"
programs, and only a small fraction for things like combatting HIV and TB. On Dec. 15, Assistant
Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon announced that the Obama
Administration would seek Congressional approval to step up this funding, with "an initiative to
create a new fund to support Russian non-governmental organizations that are committed to a more
pluralistic and open society."
Awaiting McFaul
White House/Pete Souza
The impending arrival in Moscow of Michael McFaul (shown here with his boss in the Oval Office),
as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, is seen by many there as an escalation of Project Democracy efforts
to destabilize the country.
People from various parts of the political spectrum in Russia see the impending arrival of Michael
McFaul as U.S. Ambassador to Russia as an escalation in Project Democracy efforts to destabilize
Russia. McFaul, who has been Barack Obama's National Security Council official for Russia, has been
working this beat since the early 1990s, when he represented the NDI in Russia at the end of the
Soviet period, and headed its office there.
As a Russia specialist at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover
Institution, as well as the Carnegie Endowment, and an array of other Russian studies think tanks,
McFaul has stuck closely to the Project Democracy agenda. Financing for his research has come from
the NED, the OSI, and the Smith-Richardson Foundation (another notorious agency of financier interests
within the U.S. establishment). He was an editor of the 2006 book Revolution in Orange: The Origins
of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough, containing chapters by Diuk and Karatnycky.
In his own contribution to a 2010 book titled After Putin's Russia,[3]
McFaul hailed the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine-which was notoriously funded and manipulated
from abroad-as a triumph of "people's political power from below to resist and eventually overturn
a fraudulent election."
Before coming to the NSC, one of McFaul's many positions at Stanford was co-director of the Iran
Democracy Project. He has also been active in such projects as the British Henry Jackson Society
which is active in the drive to overthrow the government of Syria.
The Internet Dimension
The December 2011 street demonstrations in Moscow were organized largely online. Participation
rose from a few hundred on Dec. 5, the day after the election, to an estimated 20,000 people on Bolotnaya
Square Dec. 10, and somewhere in the wide range of 30,000 to 120,000 on Academician Sakharov Prospect
Dec. 24.
Headlong expansion of Internet access and online social networking over the past three to five
years has opened up a new dimension of political-cultural warfare in Russia. An EIR investigation
finds that British intelligence agencies involved in the current attempts to destabilize Russia and,
in their maximum version, overthrow Putin, have been working intensively to profile online activity
in Russia and find ways to expand and exploit it. Some of these projects are outsourced to think
tanks in the U.S.A. and Canada, but their center is Cambridge University in the U.K.-the heart of
the British Empire, home of Bertrand Russell's systems analysis and related ventures of the Cambridge
Apostles.[4]
The scope of the projects goes beyond profiling, as can be seen in the Cambridge-centered network's
interaction with Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, a central figure in the December
protest rallies.
While George Soros and his OSI prioritized building Internet access in the former Soviet Union
starting two decades ago, as recently as in 2008 British cyberspace specialists were complaining
that the Internet was not yet efficient for political purposes in Russia. Oxford University's Reuters
Institute for the Study of Journalism produced a Soros-funded report in 2008, titled "The Web that
Failed: How opposition politics and independent initiatives are failing on the Internet in Russia."
The Oxford-Reuters authors regretted that processes like the Orange Revolution, in which online connections
were crucial, had not gotten a toehold in Russia. But they quoted a 2007 report by Andrew Kuchins
of the Moscow Carnegie Center, who found reason for optimism in the seven-fold increase in Russian
Internet (Runet) use from 2000 to 2007. They also cited Robert Orttung of American University and
the Resource Security Institute, on how Russian blogs were reaching "the most dynamic members of
the youth generation" and could be used by "members of civil society" to mobilize "liberal opposition
groups and nationalists."
Scarcely a year later, a report by the digital marketing firm comScore crowed that booming Internet
access had led to Russia's having "the world's most engaged social networking audience." Russian
Facebook use rose by 277% from 2008 to 2009. The Russia-based social networking outfit Vkontakte.ru
(like Facebook) had 14.3 million visitors in 2009; Odnoklassniki.ru (like Classmates.com) had 7.8
million; and Mail.ru-My World had 6.3 million. All three of these social networking sites are part
of the Mail.ru/Digital Sky Technologies empire of Yuri Milner,[5]
with the individual companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore locations.
The Cambridge Security Programme
Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert, two top profilers of the Russian Internet, noted that
the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing Internet region, the Middle East,
in 2000-08.
Two top profilers of the Runet are Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, who assessed its status
in their essay "Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace."[6]
At the University of Toronto, Deibert is a colleague of Barry Wellman, co-founder of the International
Network of Social Network Analysis (INSNA).[7]
Rohozinski is a cyber-warfare specialist who ran the Advanced Network Research Group of the Cambridge
Security Programme (CSP) at Cambridge University in 2002-07. Nominally ending its work, the CSP handed
off its projects to an array of organizations in the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), including Rohozinski's
SecDev Group consulting firm, which issues the Information Warfare Monitor.
The ONI, formally dedicated to mapping and circumventing Internet surveillance and filtering by
governments, is a joint project of Cambridge (Rohozinski), the Oxford Internet Institute, the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and the University of Toronto.
Deibert and Rohozinski noted that the Runet grew five times faster than the next fastest growing
Internet region, the Middle East, in 2000-08. They cited official estimates that 38 million Russians
were going online as of 2010, of whom 60 had broadband access from home; the forecast number of Russia-based
Runet users by 2012 was 80 million, out of a population of 140 million. Qualitatively, the ONI authors
welcomed what they called "the rise of the Internet to the center of Russian culture and politics."
On the political side, they asserted that "the Internet has eclipsed all the mass media in terms
of its reach, readership, and especially in the degree of free speech and opportunity to mobilize
that it provides."
This notion of an Internet-savvy core of the population becoming the focal point of Russian society
is now being hyped by those who want to push the December demonstrations into a full-scale political
crisis. Such writers call this segment of the population "the creative class," or "the active creative
minority," which can override an inert majority of the population. The Dec. 30 issue of Vedomosti,
a financial daily co-owned by the Financial Times of London, featured an article by sociologist
Natalya Zubarevich, which was then publicized in "Window on Eurasia" by Paul Goble, a State Department
veteran who has concentrated for decades on the potential for Russia to split along ethnic or other
lines.
Zubarevich proposed that the 31% of the Russian population living in the 14 largest cities,
of which 9 have undergone "post-industrial transformation," constitute a special, influential class,
as against the inhabitants of rural areas (38%) and mid-sized industrial cities with an uncertain
future (25%). Goble defined the big-city population as a target: "It is in this Russia that the
35 million domestic users of the Internet and those who want a more open society are concentrated."
The Case of Alexei Navalny
In the "The Web that Failed" study, Oxford-Reuters authors Floriana Fossato, John Lloyd, and Alexander
Verkhovsky delved into the missing elements, in their view, of the Russian Internet. What would it
take, they asked, for Runet participants to be able to "orchestrate motivation and meaningful commitments"?
They quoted Julia Minder of the Russian portal Rambler, who said about the potential for "mobilization":
"Blogs are at the moment the answer, but the issue is how to find a leading blogger who wants to
meet people on the Internet several hours per day. Leading bloggers need to be entertaining.... The
potential is there, but more often than not it is not used."
Creative Commons
Creative Commons/Bogomolov.PL
NED grant money has gone to Alexei Navalny (inset), the online
"anti-corruption" activist and cult figure of the December demonstrations. Addressing crowds on
the street, Navalny sounds more like Mussolini than a proponent of democracy. A Russian columnist
found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina, who conspired against the Roman Republic.
Shown: the Dec. 24 demonstration in Moscow.
It is difficult not to wonder if Alexei Navalny is a test-tube creation intended to fill the missing
niche. This would not be the first time in recent Russian history that such a thing happened. In
1990, future neoliberal "young reformers" Anatoli Chubais and Sergei Vasilyev wrote a paper under
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) auspices, on the priorities for reform
in the Soviet Union. They stated that a certain personality was missing on the Soviet scene at that
time: the wealthy businessman. In their IIASA paper, Chubais and Vasilyev wrote: "We now see a figure,
arising from historical non-existence: the figure of a businessman-entrepreneur, who has enough capital
to bear the investment responsibility, and enough technological knowledge and willingness to support
innovation."[8]
This type of person was subsequently brought into existence through the corrupt post-Soviet privatization
process in Russia, becoming known as "the oligarchs." Was Navalny, similarly, synthesized as a charismatic
blogger to fill the British subversive need for "mobilization"?
Online celebrity Navalny's arrest in Moscow on Dec. 5, and his speech at the Academician Sakharov
Prospect rally on Dec. 24 were highlights of last month's turmoil in the Russian capital. Now 35
years old, Navalny grew up in a Soviet/Russian military family and was educated as a lawyer. In 2006,
he began to be financed by NED for the DA! project (see above). Along the way-maybe through doing
online day-trading, as some biographies suggest, or maybe from unknown benefactors-Navalny acquired
enough money to be able to spend $40,000 (his figure) on a few shares in each of several major Russian
companies with a high percentage of state ownership. This gave him minority-shareholder status, as
a platform for his anti-corruption probes.
It must be understood that the web of "corruption" in Russia is the system of managing cash flows
through payoffs, string-pulling, and criminal extortion, which arose out of the boost that Gorbachov's
perestroika policy gave to pre-existing Soviet criminal networks in the 1980s. It then experienced
a boom under darlings of London like Gaidar, who oversaw the privatization process known as the Great
Criminal Revolution in the 1990s. As Russia has been integrated into an international financial order,
which itself relies on criminal money flows from the dope trade and strategically motivated scams
like Britain's BAE operations in the Persian Gulf, the preponderance of shady activity in the Russian
economy has only increased.
Putin's governments inherited this system, and it can be ended when the commitment to monetarism,
which LaRouche has identified as a fatal flaw even among genuinely pro-development Russians, is broken
in Russia and worldwide. The current bankruptcy of the Trans-Atlantic City of London-Eurozone-Wall
Street system means that now is the time for this to happen!
Yale Fellows
In 2010, Navalny was accepted to the Yale World Fellows Program, as one of fewer than 20 approved
candidates out of over a thousand applicants. As EIR has reported, the Yale Fellows are instructed
by the likes of British Foreign Office veteran Lord Mark Malloch-Brown and representatives of Soros's
Open Society Foundations.[9]
What's more, the World Fellows Program is funded by The Starr Foundation of Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg,
former chairman and CEO of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), the recipient of enormous
Bush Jr.-Obama bailout largesse in 2008-09; Greenberg and his C.V. Starr company have a long record
of facilitating "regime change" (aka coups), going back to the 1986 overthrow of President Ferdinand
Marcos in the Philippines. Navalny reports that Maria Gaidar told him to try for the program, and
he enjoyed recommendations from top professors at the New Economic School in Moscow, a hotbed
of neoliberalism and mathematical economics. It was from New Haven that Navalny launched his
anti-corruption campaign against Transneft, the Russian national oil pipeline company, specifically
in relation to money movements around the new East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. The ESPO has just
finished the first year of operation of its spur supplying Russian oil to China.
Navalny presents a split personality to the public. Online he is "Mr. Openness." He posts the
full legal documentation of his corruption exposés. When his e-mail account was hacked, and his correspondence
with U.S. Embassy and NED officials about funding him was made public, Navalny acknowledged that
the e-mails were genuine. He tries to disarm interviewers with questions like, "Do you think I'm
an American project, or a Kremlin one?"
During the early-January 2012 holiday lull in Russia, Navalny engaged in a lengthy, oh-so-civilized
dialogue in Live Journal with Boris Akunin (real name, Grigori Chkhartishvili), a famous detective-story
author and liberal activist who was another leader of the December demonstrations, about whether
Navalny's commitment to the slogan "Russia for the Russians" marks him as a bigot who is unfit to
lead. Addressing crowds on the street, however, Navalny sounds like Mussolini. Prominent Russian
columnist Maxim Sokolov, writing in Izvestia, found him reminiscent of either Hitler, or Catalina,
who conspired against the Roman Republic.
Navalny may well end up being expendable in the view of his sponsors. In the meantime, it is clear
that he is working from the playbook of Gene Sharp, whose neurolinguistic programming and advertising
techniques were employed in Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004.[10]
Sharp, a veteran of "advanced studies" at Oxford and 30 years at Harvard's Center for International
Affairs, is the author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Power and Struggle, which advises
the use of symbolic colors, short slogans, and so forth.
While at Yale, Navalny also served as an informant and advisor for a two-year study conducted
at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, one of the institutions participating in the
OpenNet Initiative, launched out of Cambridge University in the U.K. The study produced a profile
titled "Mapping the Russian Blogosphere," which detailed the different sections of the Runet: liberal,
nationalist, cultural, foreign-based, etc., looking at their potential social impact.
Allen Douglas, Gabrielle Peut, David Christie, and Dorothea Bunnell did research for this article.
[1] "Project Democracy: The 'parallel government' behind the Iran-Contra affair," Washington,
D.C.: EIR Research, Inc., 1987. This 341-page special report explored the connection between the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the illegal gun-running operations of Col. Oliver North,
et al., which had been mentioned in cursory fashion in the Tower Commission report on that "Iran-Contra"
scandal. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.'s introduction to the report identified the roots of North's
"Irangate" gun-running in Henry A. Kissinger's reorganization of U.S. intelligence under President
Richard M. Nixon, in the wake of post-Watergate findings by the 1975 Senate Select Committee to
Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (Church Committee). The
process of replacing traditional intelligence functions of government with National Security Council-centered
operations, often cloaked as promoting ``democracy'' worldwide, was continued under the Trilateral
Commission-created Administration of Jimmy Carter. Supporting ``democracy''--often measured by
such criteria as economic deregulation and extreme free-market programs, which ravage the populations
that are supposedly being democratized--became an axiom of U.S. foreign policy. The NED itself
was founded in 1983.
[2] "Profile:
'Get LaRouche' Taskforce: Train Salon's Cold War Propaganda Apparat,"EIR, Sept. 29,
2006, reviews the Truman-era roots of relations among Anglo-American intelligence figures John
Train, James Jesus Angleton, Jay Lovestone, and Leo Cherne, all of whom were later active against
LaRouche and his influence. Cherne's International Rescue Committee (IRC) was described by Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, its one-time director of public relations, as an instrument of "psychological
warfare." The closely related Freedom House project was directed by Cherne for many years. Geostrategists
such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has written that Russia is destined to fragment as the Soviet
Union did, have sat on its board.
[3] Stephen K. Wegren, Dale Roy Herspring (eds.), After Putin's Russia: Past Imperfect,
Future Uncertain, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010, p. 118.
[4] Craig Isherwood, "Universal Principles vs. Sense Certainty," The New Citizen, October/November
2011, p. 12 (http://cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/cv7n6_pages12to14.pdf).
Founded as the Cambridge Conversazione Society in 1820, by Cambridge University professor and
advisor to the British East India Company, the Rev. Charles Simeon, the Apostles are a secret
society limited to 12 members at a time. Its veterans have held strategic intelligence posts for
the British Empire, both in the heyday of overt colonialism, and in the continuing financial empire
and anti-science "empire of the mind," for nearly two centuries, during which Cambridge was the
elite university in Britain, Trinity College was the elite college within Cambridge, and the Apostles
were the elite within Trinity. Isherwood reported, "Among other doctrines, the Apostles founded:
Fabian socialism; logical positivism specifically against physical chemistry; most of modern psychoanalysis;
all modern economic doctrines, including Keynesianism and post-World War II 'mathematical economics';
modern digital computers and 'information theory'; and systems analysis. They also founded the
world-famous Cavendish Laboratory as the controlling priesthood for science, to attack Leibniz,
Gauss, and Riemann, in particular.... John Maynard Keynes, a leader of the Apostles, ... traced
the intellectual traditions of the Apostles back to John Locke and Isaac Newton, and through Newton
back to the ancient priesthood of Babylon." The group's abiding focus on influencing Russia is
exemplified by not only Bertrand Russell himself, but also the involvement of several members
of the Apostles, including Lord Victor Rothschild of the banking family, and future Keeper of
the Queen's Pictures Sir Anthony Blunt, in the Anglo-Soviet spy rings of the mid-20th Century.
[5] Billionaire Milner is a self-described failed physicist. He worked for the World Bank
on Russian banking issues in the 1990s, before making his fortune as one of Russia's newly minted
"oligarchs"-a business partner of now-jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the Menatep banking group,
among other projects.
[6] In Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace, an
OpenNet Initiative (ONI) book, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2010.
[8] Anatoliy Chubais and Sergei A. Vasiliev, "Privatization in the USSR: Necessary for Structural
Change," in Economic Reform and Integration: Proceedings of 1-3 March 1990 Meeting, Laxenberg,
Austria: IIASA, July 1990. The authors' notion of a charismatic businessman-entrepreneur comes
straight from Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who coined the term Unternehmergeist,
or "entrepreneur-spirit," to describe people he called agents of "creative destruction."
Hillary tried to play the gender card and the 9/11 card in an attempt to escape to accusation
(actually a provable fact) that she is a Wall Street sheel. "Why has Wall Street been the major
campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton?" Sanders asked loudly, concluding that big contributors only
give because "They expect to get something. Everybody knows it."
...Clinton asserted that under her
bank-regulation plan, if Wall Street institutions don't play by the rules "I will break them up."
Sanders minced her defense into peaces: "Wall Street play by the rules? Who are we kidding?!
The business model for Wall Street is fraud," Sanders fired back.
A short time later, the moderators got a tweet calling her out for "invoking 9/11" to justify taking
donations from Wall Street. One tweeter said they'd never seen a candidate "invoke 9/11 to champion
Wall Street. What does that have to do with taking big donations," Clinton was asked.
Sanders said that there's no getting around the fact that Wall Street has become a dominant political
power and its "business model is greed and fraud, and for the sake of our economy major banks must be
broken up."
Bernie compared himself to Ike, scoring one of the few real laugh lines of the night. CBS News moderator
Nancy Cordes asked Sanders how he's going to pay for expensive programs such as his tuition-free college
plan. By taxing the wealthy and big corporations, he says. Asked how much of a tax hike he's planning
to stick them with, he responded, "We haven't come up with an exact number yet … But it will not be
as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower which was 90%," Sanders said of the Republican president.
"I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower," Sanders concluded, to guffaws from the
crowd.
Senator Sanders, let me just follow this line of thinking. You've criticized then Senator Clinton's
vote. Do you have anything to criticize in the way she performed as secretary of state?
BERNIE SANDERS:
I think we have a disagreement. And-- the disagreement is that not only did I vote against the
war in Iraq, if you look at history, John, you will find that regime change-- whether it was in the
early '50s in Iran, whether it was toppling Salvador Allende in Chile or whether it was overthrowing
the government Guatemala way back when-- these invasions, these-- these toppling of governments,
regime changes have unintended consequences. I would say that on this issue I'm a little bit more
conservative than the secretary.
JOHN DICKERSON:
Here, let me go--
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
John, may I-- may I interject here? Secretary Clinton also said that we left the h-- it was not
just the invasion of Iraq which Secretary Clinton voted for and has since said was a big mistake,
and indeed it was. But it was also the cascading effects that followed that.
It was also the disbanding of-- many elements of the Iraqi army that are now showing up as part
of ISIS. It was-- country after country without making the investment in human intelligence to understand
who the new leaders were and the new forces were that are coming up. We need to be much more far
f-- thinking in this new 21st century era of-- of nation state failures and conflict. It's not just
about getting rid of a single dictator. It is about understanding the secondary and third consequences
that fall next.
JOHN DICKERSON:
Governor O'Malley, I wanna ask you a question and you can add whatever you'd like to. But let
me ask you, is the world too dangerous a place for a governor who has no foreign policy experience?
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
John, the world is a very dangerous place. But the world is not too dangerous of a place for the
United States of America provided we act according to our principles, provided we act intelligently.
I mean, let's talk about this arc of-- of instability that Secretary Clinton talked about.
Libya is now a mess. Syria is a mess. Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess. As Americans we have
shown ourselves-- to have the greatest military on the face of the planet. But we are not so very
good at anticipating threats and appreciating just how difficult it is to build up stable democracies
and make the investments in sustainable development that we must as the nation if we are to attack
the root causes of-- of the source of-- of instability.
And I wanted to add one other thing, John, and I think it's important for all of us on this stage.
I was in Burlington, Iowa and a mom of a service member of ours who served two duties in Iraq said,
"Governor O'Malley, please, when you're with your other candidates and colleagues on-- on stage,
please don't use the term boots on Iraq-- on the ground. Please don't use the term boots on the ground.
My son is not a pair of boots on the ground."
These are American soldiers and we fail them when we fail to take into account what happens the
day after a dictator falls. And when we fall to act with a whole of government approach with sustainable
development, diplomacy and our economic power in-- alignment with our principles.
BERNIE SANDERS:
But when you talk about the long-term consequences of war let's talk about the men and women who
came home from war. The 500,000 who came home with P.T.S.D. and traumatic brain injury. And I would
hope that in the midst of all of this discussion this country makes certain that we do not turn our
backs on the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend us. And that we stand with them
as they have stood with us.
JOHN DICKERSON:
Senator Sanders, you've-- you've said that the donations to Secretary Clinton are compromising.
So what did you think of her answer?
BERNIE SANDERS:
Not good enough. (LAUGH) Here's the story. I mean, you know, let's not be naive about it. Why
do-- why over her political career has Wall Street a major-- the major-- campaign contributor to
Hillary Clinton? You know, maybe they're dumb and they don't know what they're gonna get. But I don't
think so.
Here is the major issue when we talk about Wall Street, it ain't complicated. You got six financial
institutions today that have assets of 56 per-- equivalent to 50-- six percent of the GDP in America.
They issue two thirds of the credit cards and one third of the mortgages. If Teddy Roosevelt, the
good republican, were alive today you know what he'd say? "Break them up. Reestablish (APPLAUSE)
(UNINTEL) like Teddy Roosevelt (UNINTEL) that is leadership. So I am the only candidate up here that
doesn't have a super PAC. I'm not asking Wall Street or the billionaires for money. I will break
up these banks, support community banks and credit unions-- credit unions. That's the future of banking
in America.
JOHN DICKERSON:
Quick follow-up because you-- you-- (APPLAUSE) Secretary Clinton, you'll get a chance to respond.
You said they know what they're going to get. What are they gonna get?
BERNIE SANDERS:
I have never heard a candidate, never, who's received huge amounts of money from oil, from coal,
from Wall Street, from the military industrial complex, not one candidate, go, "OH, these-- these
campaign contributions will not influence me. I'm gonna be independent." Now, why do they make millions
of dollars of campaign contributions? They expect to get something. Everybody knows that. Once again,
I am running a campaign differently than any other candidate. We are relying on small campaign donors,
$750,000 and $30 apiece. That's who I'm indebted to.
BERNIE SANDERS:
Here's-- she touches on two broad issues. It's not just Wall Street. It's campaigns, a corrupt
campaign finance system. And it is easy to talk the talk about ending-- Citizens United. But what
I think we need to do is show by example that we are prepared to not rely on large corporations and
Wall Street for campaign contributions.
And that's what I'm doing. In terms of Wall Street I respectfully disagree with you, Madame Secretary
in the sense that the issue is when you have such incredible power and such incredible wealth, when
you have Wall Street spending five billion dollars over a ten year period to get re-- to get deregulated
the only answer that I know is break them up, reestablish Glass Steagall.
JOHN DICKERSON:
Senator, we have to get Senator O'Malley in. But no-- along with your answer how many Wall Street--
veterans would you have in your administration?
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
Well, I'll tell you what, I've said this before, I-- I don't-- I believe that we actually need
some new economic thinking in the White House. And I would not have Robert Rubin or Larry Summers
with all due respect, Secretary Clinton, to you and to them, back on my council of economic advisors.
HILLARY CLINTON:
Anyone (UNINTEL PHRASE).
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
If they were architects, sure, we'll-- we'll have-- we'll have an inclusive group. But I won't
be taking my orders from Wall Street. And-- look, let me say this-- I put out a proposal-- I was
on the front line when people lost their homes, when people lost their jobs.
I was on the front lines as the governor-- fighting against-- fighting that battle. Our economy
was wrecked by the big banks of Wall Street. And Secretary Clinton-- when you put out your proposal
(LAUGH) on Wall Street it was greeted by many as quote/ unquote weak tea. It is weak tea. It is not
what the people expect of our country. We expect that our president will protect the main street
economy from excesses on Wall Street. And that's why Bernie's right. We need to reinstate a modern
version of Glass Steagall and we should have done it already. (APPLAUSE)
KATHIE OBRADOVICH:
And I will also go after executives who are responsible for the decisions that have such bad consequences
for our country. (APPLAUSE)
BERNIE SANDERS:
Look, I don't know-- with all due respect to the secretary, Wall Street played by the rules. Who
are we kidding? The business model of Wall Street is fraud. That's what it is. And we-- we have--
(APPLAUSE) and let me make this promise, one of the problems we have had I think all-- all Americans
understand it is whether it's republican administration or democratic administration we have seen
Wall Street and Goldman Sachs dominate administrations. Here's my promise Wall Street representatives
will not be in my cabinet. (APPLAUSE)
BERNIE SANDERS:
But let's-- let me hear it-- if there's any difference between the secretary and myself. I have
voted time and again to-- for-- for the background checks. And I wanna see it improved and expanded.
I wanna see them do away with the gun show loophole. In 1988 I lost an election because I said we
should not have assault weapons on the streets of America.
We have to do away with the strong man proposal. We need radical changes in mental health in America.
So somebody who's suicidal or homicidal can get the emergency care they need. But we have-- I don't
know that there's any disagreement here.
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
John, this is another one of those examples. Look, we have-- we have a lot of work to do. And
we're the only nation on the planet that buries as many of our people from gun violence as we do
in my own state after they-- the children in that Connecticut classroom were gunned down, we passed
comprehensive-- gun safety legislation, background checks, ban on assault weapons.
And senator, I think we do need to repeal that immunity that you granted to the gun industry.
But Secretary Clinton, you've been on three sides of this. When you ran in 2000 you said that we
needed federal robust regulations. Then in 2008 you were portraying yourself as Annie Oakley and
saying that we don't need those regulation on the federal level. And now you're coming back around
here. So John, there's a big difference between leading by polls and leading with principle. We got
it done in my state by leading with principle. And that's what we need to do as a party, comprehensive
gun--
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
John, there is not-- a serious economist who would disagree that the six big banks of Wall Street
have taken on so much power and that all of us are still on the hook to bail them out on their bad
debts. That's not capitalism, Secretary Clinton-- Clinton, that's crummy capitalism.
That's a wonderful business model if you place that bet-- the taxpayers bail you out. But if you
place good ones you pocket it. Look, I don't believe that the model-- there's lots of good people
that work in finance, Secretary Sanders. But Secretary Clinton, we need to step up. And we need to
protect main street from Wall Street. And you can't do that by-- by campaigning as the candidate
of Wall Street. I am not the candidate of Wall Street. And I encourage--
BERNIE SANDERS:
No, it's not throwing-- it is an extraordinary investment for this country. In Germany, many other
countries do it already. In fact, if you remember, 50, 60 years ago, University of California, City
University of New York were virtually tuition-free. Here it's a new (?) story.
It's not just that college graduates should be $50,000 or $100,000 in debt. More importantly,
I want kids in Burlington, Vermont, or Baltimore, Maryland, who are in the six grade or the eighth
grade who don't have a lot of money, whose parents that-- like my parents, may never have gone to
college. You know what I want, Kevin? I want those kids to know that if they study hard, they do
their homework, regardless of the income of their families, they will in fact be able to great a
college education. Because we're gonna make public colleges and universities tuition-free. This is
revolutionary for education in America. It will give hope for millions of young people.
BERNIE SANDERS:
It's not gonna happen tomorrow. And it's probably not gonna happen until you have real campaign finance
reform and get rid of all these super PACs and the power of the insurance companies and the drug
companies. But at the end of the day, Nancy, here is a question. In this great country of ours, with
so much intelligence, with so much capabilities, why do we remain the only (UNINTEL) country on earth
that does not guarantee healthcare to all people as a right?
Why do we continue to get ripped off by the drug companies who can charge us any prices they want?
Why is it that we are spending per capita far, far more than Canada, which is a hundred miles away
from my door, that guarantees healthcare to all people? It will not happen tomorrow. But when millions
of people stand up and are prepared to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies, it
will happen and I will lead that effort. Medicare for all, single-payer system is the way we should
go. (APPLAUSE)
BERNIE SANDERS:
Well-- I had the honor of being chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs for two
years. And in that capacity, I met with just an extraordinary group of people from World War II,
from Korea, Vietnam, all of the wars. People who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan without legs,
without arms. And I've been determined to do everything that I could to make VA healthcare the best
in the world, to expand benefits to the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend (UNINTEL).
And we brought together legislation, supported by the American Legion, the VFW, the DAV, Vietnam
Vets, all of the veterans' organizations, which was comprehensive, clearly the best (UNINTEL) for
veterans' legislation brought forth in decades. I could only get two Republican votes on that. And
after 56 votes, we didn't get 60. So what I have to do then is go back and start working on a bill
that wasn't the bill that I wanted.
To (UNINTEL) people like John McCain, to (UNINTEL) people like Jeff Miller, the Republican chairman
of the House, and work on a bill. It wasn't the bill that I wanted. But yet, it turns out to be one
of the most significant pieces of veterans' legislation passed in recent history. You know, the crisis
was, I lost what I wanted. But I have to stand up and come back and get the best that we could.
JOHN DICKERSON:
All right, Senator Sanders. We end-- (APPLAUSE) we've ended the evening on crisis, which underscores
and reminds us again of what happened last night. Now let's move to closing statements, Governor
O'Malley?
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
John, thank you. And to all of the people of Iowa, for the role that you've performed in this
presidential selection process, if you believe that our country's problems and the threats that we
face in this world can only be met with new thinking, new and fresh approaches, then I ask you to
join my campaign. Go onto MartinOMalley.com. No hour is too short, no dollar too small.
If you-- we will not solve our nation's problems by resorting to the divisive ideologies of our
past or by returning to polarizing figures from our past. We are at the threshold of a new era of
American progress. That it's going to require that we act as Americans, based on our principles.
Here at home, making an economy that works for all of us.
And also, acting according to our principles and constructing a new foreign policy of engagement
and collaboration and doing a much better job of identifying threats before they back us into military
corners. There is new-- no challenge too great for the United States to confront, provided we have
the ability and the courage to put forward new leadership that can move us to those better and safer
and more prosperous (UNINTEL). I need your help. Thank you very, very much. (APPLAUSE)
BERNIE SANDERS:
This country today has more income and wealth inequality than any major country on earth. We have
a corrupt campaign finance system, dominated by super PACs. We're the only major country on earth
that doesn't guarantee healthcare to all people. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty. And
we're the only in the world, (UNINTEL) the only country that doesn't guarantee paid family and medical
leave. That's not the America that I think we should be.
But in order to bring about the changes that we need, we need a political revolution. Millions
of people are gonna have to stand up, turn off the TVs, get involved in the political process, and
tell the big monied interests that we are taking back our country. Please go to BernieSanders.com,
please become part of the political revolution. Thank you. (CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)
"... Political Institutions under Dictatorship ..."
"... Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the cold war ..."
"... Journal of Economic Perspectives ..."
"... Political Science Quarterly ..."
"... The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights ..."
"... the US needs to only be mildly interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones
and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime.
..."
"... In light of the New American Police State, post 9-11, it is clear to me that the United States
has undergone a coup d'etat. ..."
"... Most of us back Chavez, Morales, or Correa for the policies they have followed in their own
countries to the benefit of the great masses of the poor and their refusal to put the interests of international
capital ahead of their people. ..."
The new authoritarianism,
by Sergei Guriev, Daniel Treisman, Vox EU: The changing dictatorships Dictatorships
are not what they used to be. The totalitarian tyrants of the past – such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao,
or Pol Pot – employed terror, indoctrination, and isolation to monopolize power. Although less
ideological, many 20th-century military regimes also relied on mass violence to intimidate dissidents.
Pinochet's agents, for instance, are thought to have tortured and killed tens of thousands of
Chileans (Roht-Arriaza 2005).
However, in recent decades new types of authoritarianism have emerged that seem better adapted
to a world of open borders, global media, and knowledge-based economies. From the Peru of Alberto
Fujimori to the Hungary of Viktor Orban, illiberal regimes have managed to consolidate power without
fencing off their countries or resorting to mass murder. Some bloody military regimes and totalitarian
states remain – such as Syria and North Korea – but the balance has shifted.
The new autocracies often simulate democracy, holding elections that the incumbents almost
always win, bribing and censoring the private press rather than abolishing it, and replacing comprehensive
political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West (Gandhi 2008, Levitsky and Way 2010).
Their leaders often enjoy genuine popularity – at least after eliminating any plausible rivals.
State propaganda aims not to 'engineer human souls' but to boost the dictator's ratings. Political
opponents are harassed and defamed, charged with fabricated crimes, and encouraged to emigrate,
rather than being murdered en masse.
Dictatorships and information
In a recent paper, we argue that the distinctive feature of such new dictatorships is a preoccupation
with information (Guriev and Treisman 2015). Although they do use violence at times, they maintain
power less by terrorizing victims than by manipulating beliefs. Of course, surveillance and propaganda
were important to the old-style dictatorships, too. But violence came first. "Words are fine things,
but muskets are even better," Mussolini quipped. Compare that to the confession of Fujimori's
security chief, Vladimir Montesinos: "The addiction to information is like an addiction to drugs".
Killing members of the elite struck Montesinos as foolish: "Remember why Pinochet had his problems.
We will not be so clumsy" (McMillan and Zoido 2004).
We study the logic of a dictatorship in which the leader survives by manipulating information.
Our key assumption is that citizens care about effective government and economic prosperity; first
and foremost, they want to select a competent rather than incompetent ruler. However, the general
public does not know the competence of the ruler; only the dictator himself and members of an
'informed elite' observe this directly. Ordinary citizens make what inferences they can, based
on their living standards – which depend in part on the leader's competence – and on messages
sent by the state and independent media. The latter carry reports on the leader's quality sent
by the informed elite. If a sufficient number of citizens come to believe their ruler is incompetent,
they revolt and overthrow him.
The challenge for an incompetent dictator is, then, to fool the public into thinking he is
competent. He chooses from among a repertoire of tools – propaganda, repression of protests, co-optation
of the elite, and censorship of their messages. All such tools cost money, which must come from
taxing the citizens, depressing their living standards, and indirectly lowering their estimate
of the dictator's competence. Hence the trade-off.
Certain findings emerge from the logic of this game.
First, we show how modern autocracies can survive while employing relatively little violence
against the public.
Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently. Dictators win
a confidence game rather than an armed combat. Indeed, since in our model repression is only used
if equilibria based on non-violent methods no longer exist, violence can signal to opposition
forces that the regime is vulnerable.
Second, since members of the informed elite must coordinate among themselves on whether
to sell out to the regime, two alternative equilibria often exist under identical circumstances
– one based on a co-opted elite, the other based on a censored private media.
Since both bribing the elite and censoring the media are ways of preventing the sending of
embarrassing messages, they serve as substitutes. Propaganda, by contrast, complements all the
other tools.
Propaganda and a leader's competency
Why does anyone believe such propaganda? Given the dictator's obvious incentive to lie, this
is a perennial puzzle of authoritarian regimes. We offer an answer. We think of propaganda as
consisting of claims by the ruler that he is competent. Of course, genuinely competent rulers
also make such claims. However, backing them up with convincing evidence is costlier for the incompetent
dictators – who have to manufacture such evidence – than for their competent counterparts, who
can simply reveal their true characteristics. Since faking the evidence is costly, incompetent
dictators sometimes choose to spend their resources on other things. It follows that the public,
observing credible claims that the ruler is competent, rationally increases its estimate that
he really is.
Moreover, if incompetent dictators survive, they may over time acquire a reputation for competence,
as a result of Bayesian updating by the citizens. Such reputations can withstand temporary economic
downturns if these are not too large. This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian
leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez).
While a major economic crisis results in their overthrow, more gradual deteriorations may fail
to tarnish their reputations significantly.
A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative
spending on these as the economy crashes. As Turkey's growth rate fell from 7.8% in 2010 to 0.8%
in 2012, the number of journalists in jail increased from four to 49. Declines in press freedom
were also witnessed after the Global Crisis in countries such as Hungary and Russia. Conversely,
although this may be changing now, in both Singapore and China during the recent decades of rapid
growth, the regime's information control strategy shifted from one of more overt intimidation
to one that often used economic incentives and legal penalties to encourage self-censorship (Esarey
2005, Rodan 1998).
The kind of information-based dictatorship we identify is more compatible with a modernized
setting than with the rural underpinnings of totalitarianism in Asia or the traditional societies
in which monarchs retain legitimacy. Yet, modernization ultimately undermines the informational
equilibria on which such dictators rely. As education and information spread to broader segments
of the population, it becomes harder to control how this informed elite communicates with the
masses. This may be a key mechanism explaining the long-noted tendency for richer countries to
open up politically.
References
Esarey, A (2005), "Cornering the market: state strategies for controlling China's commercial
media", Asian Perspective 29(4): 37-83.
Gandhi, J (2008), Political Institutions under Dictatorship, New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Levitsky, S, and L A Way (2010), Competitive authoritarianism: hybrid regimes after the
cold war, New York: Cambridge University Press.
McMillan, J, and P Zoido (2004), "How to subvert democracy: Montesinos in Peru", Journal
of Economic Perspectives 18(4): 69-92.
Rodan, G (1998), "The Internet and political control in Singapore", Political Science Quarterly
113(1): 63-89.
Roht-Arriaza, N (2005), The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human
Rights, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Peter K. said...
"A final implication is that regimes that focus on censorship and propaganda may boost relative
spending on these as the economy crashes."
Instead of military Keynesianism, it's "police state" Keynesianism.
More social spending coupled with more social control.
ilsm said...
The corporation runs the governors.....
"Investor State Dispute Settlement" is a new twist where the actions of government, like investor
"losses" from shuttering frackers would be compensated by a standing unelected nor appointed by
the locals "board" filled with corporate cronies to take sovereignty from governments when foreign
investors are denied pillaging "rights".
"Investor State Dispute Settlement" is why you should oppose TPP fast track.
The kleptocarcy is well advanced in the US!
GeorgeK said...
..."This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on
to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez"...
Guess your definition of authoritarian leaders depends on who's Ox is being gored. If you were
wealthy or upper middle class Chavez was a failure, if you were poor or indigenous he was a savior.
..."Chávez maintains that unlike other global financial organizations, the Bank of the South
will be managed and funded by the countries of the region with the intention of funding social
and economic development without any political conditions on that funding.[262] The project is
endorsed by Nobel Prize–winning, former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said: "One of
the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those
in the south," and that "It is a good thing to have competition in most markets, including the
market for development lending."[263]"...
Guess nobody told Stiglitz about Chavez's authoritarian incompetence.
Julio said in reply to anne...
Seems clear enough to me. Consider "freedom of the press": the US needs to only be mildly
interventionist, since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers;
and since the one-sidedness of information is no threat to the regime.
But in a government attempting left-wing reforms, and where the government is less stable, there
is less room for the government to accept the unanimity and hostility of the press; it may need
to intervene more strongly to defend itself. Take e.g. Ecuador where Correa has been accused of
suppressing press liberties along these very lines.
anne said in reply to Julio...
Seems clear enough to me. Consider "freedom of the press": the US needs to only be mildly interventionist,
since moneyed interests will own the megaphones and censor their own workers; and since the one-sidedness
of information is no threat to the regime....
[ Thinking further, I realize that the United States is wildly aggressive with governments
of countries considered strategic and does not hesitate to use media in those countries when our
"needs" do not seem met. I am thinking even of the effort to keep allied governments, even the
UK, France and Germany, from agreeing to become members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank that China has begun. ]
Peter K. said in reply to GeorgeK...
"Guess your definition of authoritarian leaders depends on who's Ox is being gored."
This is how I see it. There are no objective standards.
Lefties criticize Obama for going after whistle blowers. Snowden is treated as a hero. Then
guys like Paine and Kervack defend the behaviro of a Putin or Chavez because the U.S. doesn't
like them.
Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....
I think a lot of the older left is stuck in a Cold War mind set.
Opposing America is good because you're opposing multinational capitalism. So they'll provide
rhetorical support to any nutjob who opposes the West no matter how badly he mistreats his people.
Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....
It's the flipside to the Dick Cheney-Security State rationalizations of torture and police
state tactics like warrantless surveillence.
It's okay if we do it, because they're trying to destroy us.
The ends justify the means.
hyperpolarizer said in reply to Peter K....
I am the older left (born right after WW II). I grew up with the cold war, but -- despite its
poisonous legacy (particularly the linking of the domestic labor movement to international communism)--
I have assuredly left it behind.
In light of the New American Police State, post 9-11, it is clear to me that the United
States has undergone a coup d'etat.
Roger Gathmann said in reply to anne...
Defending Chavez doesn't seem like a bad thing to do. So, Peter K., do you defend, say, Uribe?
Let's see - amended constitution so he could run again - Chavez, check, Uribe check. Associated with
paramilitaries, Uribe, check, Chavez, demi-check. Loved by the US, Uribe, check, Chavez, non-check.
Funny how chavez figures in these things, and Uribe doesn't. https://www.citizen.org/documents/TalkingPointsApril08.pdf
Peter K. said in reply to Roger Gathmann...
I never said a thing about Uribe. I said there should be single standards across the board
for Uribe, America, Chavez, Putin, China, etc...
Roger Gathmann said in reply to Peter K....
Right. Double standard. That is what I am talking about. The double standard that allows US
tax dollars to go into supporting a right wing dictator like Uribe. I don't have to piss off.
You can piss off. I doubt you will. I certainly won't. It is adolescent gestures like that which
make me wonder about your age.
Are you going to slam the door next and saY I hate you I hate you I hate you?
You need to get a little pillow that you can mash. Maybe with a hello kitty sewed on it.
Nietil said in reply to Roger Gathmann...
I don't see how any of these criteria has anything to do with being an autocrat.
Autocracy is an answer to the question of the source of legitimacy (democratic, autocratic,
or theocratic). It has nothing to do with either the definition of the sovereign space (feudal,
racial or national) or with the number of people running the said government (anarchy, monarchy,
oligarchy).
The UK for example was a national and democratic monarchy for a long, long time. Now it's more
of a national and democratic oligarchy. And it can still change in the future.
DrDick said in reply to Peter K....
I really do not think that is at all accurate. While there are certainly some like that, it
is far from the majority. Most of us back Chavez, Morales, or Correa for the policies they
have followed in their own countries to the benefit of the great masses of the poor and their
refusal to put the interests of international capital ahead of their people.
Much of that support is also conditional and qualified, for reasons that have been mentioned
here. All evaluations of current leaders is conditioned by both past history in the country and
region, as well as the available alternatives. By those standards, all of the men I mentioned
look pretty good, if far from perfect.
How Modern Dictators Survive: Cooptation, Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression
By Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman
We develop an informational theory of dictatorship. Dictators survive not because of their
use of force or ideology but because they convince the public--rightly or wrongly--that they are
competent. Citizens do not observe the dictator's type but infer it from signals inherent in their
living standards, state propaganda, and messages sent by an informed elite via independent media.
If citizens conclude the dictator is incompetent, they overthrow him in a revolution. The dictator
can invest in making convincing state propaganda, censoring independent media, co-opting the elite,
or equipping police to repress attempted uprisings -- but he must finance such spending with taxes
that depress the public's living standards. We show that incompetent dictators can survive as
long as economic shocks are not too large. Moreover, their reputations for competence may grow
over time. Censorship and co-optation of the elite are substitutes, but both are complements of
propaganda. Repression of protests is a substitute for all the other techniques. In some equilibria
the ruler uses propaganda and co-opts the elite; in others, propaganda is combined with censorship.
The multiplicity of equilibria emerges due to coordination failure among members of the elite.
We show that repression is used against ordinary citizens only as a last resort when the opportunities
to survive through co-optation, censorship, and propaganda are exhausted. In the equilibrium with
censorship, difficult economic times prompt higher relative spending on censorship and propaganda.
The results illuminate tradeoffs faced by various recent dictatorships.
[ This is the discussion paper, which I find more coherent than the summary essay. ]
JayR said...
Wow quite a few countries, maybe even the US with Obama's war on whistle blowers, could fit
this articles definition if the authors actually though more about it.
Roger Gathmann said in reply to Peter K....
Yes, the people of Greece can vote to leave the Eurozone, just like the people of Crimea can
vote to leave the Ukraine, or the people of Kosovo could vote to leave Serbia. There are many
ways, though, of looking at soft dictatorship. I think the EU bureaucrats have been busy inventing
new ones, with new and ever more onerous chains. To say Greece can vote to leave the EU is like
saying the merchant can always defy the mafioso, or the moneylender. It isn't that easy.
"... Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi politician accused of providing false information that led to the United States toppling longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion, died on Tuesday of a heart attack, state television and two parliamentarians said. ..."
"... "The neo-cons wanted to make a case for war and he [Chalabi] was somebody who is willing to provide them with information that would help their cause," Ali Khedery, who was the longest continuously-serving American official in Iraq in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, told Al Arabiya News. ..."
Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi politician accused of providing false information that led to the
United States toppling longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion, died on Tuesday of
a heart attack, state television and two parliamentarians said.
Attendants found the controversial lawmaker, 71, dead in bed in his Baghdad home, according to
parliament official Haitham al-Jabouri.
... ... ...
During his heyday, the smooth-talking Chalabi was widely seen as the man who helped push the
U.S. and its main ally Britain into invading Iraq in 2003, with information that Saddam's
government had weapons of mass destruction, claims that were eventually discredited.
... ... ...
Chalabi had also said Saddam - known for his secularist Baathist ideology - had ties with
al-Qaeda.
After Saddam's fall by U.S.-led coalition forces, Chalabi returned from exile in Britain and the
United States. Despite having been considered as a potential candidate for the powerful post of
prime minister in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's 24-year reign, the politician never managed
to rise to the top of Iraq's stormy, sectarian-driven political landscape.
His eventual fallout with his former American allies also hurt his chances of becoming an Iraqi
leader.
"The neo-cons wanted to make a case for war and he [Chalabi] was somebody who is willing to
provide them with information that would help their cause," Ali Khedery, who was the longest
continuously-serving American official in Iraq in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion,
told Al Arabiya News.
"... The President, as commander in chief, shapes US foreign policy: indeed, in our post-constitutional era, now that Congress has abdicated its responsibility, he has the de facto power to single-handedly take us into war. Which is why, paraphrasing Trotsky , you may not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested in you. ..."
"... PAUL: … How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You can not be a conservative if youre going to keep promoting new programs that youre not going to pay for. ..."
"... Here, in one dramatic encounter, were two worldviews colliding: the older conservative vision embodied by Rand Paul, which puts domestic issues like fiscal solvency first, and the internationalist stance taken by what used to be called Rockefeller Republicans , and now goes under the neoconservative rubric, which puts the maintenance and expansion of Americas overseas empire – dubbed world leadership by Rubios doppelganger, Jeb Bush – over and above any concerns over budgetary common sense. ..."
"... Rubios proposed military budget – $696 billion – represents a $35 billion increase over what the Pentagon is requesting ..."
"... Pauls too-clever-by-half legislative maneuvering may have effectively exposed Rubio – and Sen. Tom Cotton, Marcos co-pilot on this flight into fiscal profligacy – as the faux-conservative that he is, but it evaded the broader question attached to the issue of military spending: what are we going to do with all that shiny-new military hardware? Send more weapons to Ukraine? Outfit an expeditionary force to re-invade Iraq and venture into Syria? This brings to mind Madeleine Albrights infamous remark directed at Gen. Colin Powell: Whats the point of having this superb military youre always talking about if we cant use it? ..."
"... Speaking of Trumpian hot air: Paul showed up The Donald for the ignorant blowhard he is by pointing out, after another of Trumps jeremiads aimed at the Yellow Peril, that China is not a party to the trade deal, which is aimed at deflecting Beijing. That was another shining moment for Paul, who successfully juxtaposed his superior knowledge to Trumps babbling. ..."
"... If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, one-hundred percent, and I cant understand how anybody would be against it. ..."
"... Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the isolationist populism that Rubio and his neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness. Why us? Why are we paying everybodys bills? Why are we fighting everybody elses wars? Its a bad deal! ..."
"... This is why the neocons hate Trumps guts even more than they hate Paul. The former, after all, is the frontrunner. What the War Party fears is that Trumps contradictory mixture of bluster – bigger, better, stronger! – and complaints that our allies are taking advantage of us means a victory for the dreaded isolationists at the polls. ..."
"... its election season, the one time – short of when were about to invade yet another country – when the American people are engaged with the foreign policy issues of the day. And what we are seeing is a rising tide of disgust with our policy of global intervention – in a confused inchoate sense, in the case of Trump, and in a focused, self-conscious, occasionally eloquent and yet still slightly confused and inconsistent way in the case of Sen. Paul. Either way, the real voice of the American heartland is being heard. ..."
"... Trump has rocked the boat and raised some issues and viewpoints that none of the other bought and paid for candidates would ever have raised. Has he changed the national discussion on these issues? At least he woken some people up. ..."
"... The sentence of We relied on the stupidity of the American voter resonates. ..."
"... What you did, was you fell for the oldest press trick in the book. Its called: out of context . Thats is where they play back only a segment of what someone says, only a part of what they want you to hear, so you will draw the wrong conclusion. What Trump said {had you listened to ALL of what he said} was that he was going to TAKE ISILS OIL. Oil is the largest source of revenue for them {then comes the CIA money}. If you were to remove their oil revenues from them, they would be seriously hurting for cash to fund their machine. I dont have a problem with that. ..."
"... The thing about understanding the attack on The Donald is understanding what he is NOT. Namely he is not CFR connected ..."
"... The attacks on Trump have been relentless yet he is still maintaining his position in the polls. ..."
"... The goal is to have a CFR candidate in both the GOP and Dem fold. Although Hillary is not a CFR member ostensibly Slick Willie has been for more than 20 years and his Administration was rife with them...Hello Rubin and Glass Steagal!!..as is Chelsea... a newly elected member. ..."
"... [American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant. ..."
"... Yes, I have also seen the new golden boy regaled in the media. Lets see where he goes. I wonder if anyone represents the American people any better than the corrupt piece of dried up persimmon that is Hillary? ..."
"... With JEB polling in single digits and hopelessly befuddled, Rubio is the Great Hispanic Hope of the establishment Republocrats. He is being well-pimped, is all. Paul is clearly more intelligent, more articulate, and more well-informed; Trump is more forceful and popular (but independent!). Neither suits an establishment that wants to hold the reins behind the throne. ..."
Most Americans don't think much about politics, let alone foreign policy issues, as they go about
their daily lives. It's not that they don't care: it's just that the daily grind doesn't permit most
people outside of Washington, D.C. the luxury of contemplating the fate of nations with any regularity.
There is one exception, however, and that is during election season, and specifically – when it comes
to foreign policy – every four years, when the race for the White House begins to heat up. The
President, as commander in chief, shapes US foreign policy: indeed, in our post-constitutional era,
now that Congress has abdicated its responsibility, he has the de facto power to single-handedly
take us into war. Which is why,
paraphrasing Trotsky, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested
in you.
The most recent episode of the continuing GOP reality show, otherwise known as the presidential
debates, certainly gave us a glimpse of what we are in for if the candidates on that stage actually
make it into the Oval Office – and, folks, it wasn't pretty, for the most part. But there were plenty
of bright spots.
This was supposed to have been a debate about economics, but in the Age of Empire there is no
real division between economic and foreign policy issues. That was brought home by the
collision between Marco Rubio and Rand Paul about half way through the debate when Rubio touted
his child tax credit program as being "pro-family." A newly-aggressive and articulate Rand
Paul jumped in with this:
"Is it conservative to have $1 trillion in transfer payments – a new welfare program that's
a refundable tax credit? Add that to Marco's plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and
you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative."
Rubio's blow-dried exterior seemed to fray momentarily, as he gave his "it's for the children"
reply:
"But if you invest it in your children, in the future of America and strengthening your
family, we're not going to recognize that in our tax code? The family is the most important institution
in society. And, yes…
"PAUL: Nevertheless, it's not very conservative, Marco."
Stung to the quick, Rubio played what he thought was his trump card:
"I know that Rand is a committed isolationist. I'm not. I believe the world is a stronger
and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world.
"PAUL: Yeah, but, Marco! … How is it conservative … to add a trillion-dollar expenditure
for the federal government that you're not paying for?
"RUBIO: Because…
"PAUL: … How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You
can not be a conservative if you're going to keep promoting new programs that you're not going
to pay for.
(APPLAUSE)"
Here, in one dramatic encounter, were two worldviews colliding: the older conservative vision
embodied by Rand Paul, which puts domestic issues like fiscal solvency first, and the "internationalist"
stance taken by what used to be called
Rockefeller Republicans,
and now goes under the neoconservative rubric, which puts the maintenance and expansion of America's
overseas empire – dubbed "world
leadership" by Rubio's doppelganger, Jeb Bush – over and above any concerns over budgetary common
sense.
Rubio then descended into waving the bloody shirt and evoking Trump's favorite bogeyman – the
Yellow Peril – to justify his budget-busting:
"We can't even have an economy if we're not safe. There are radical jihadists in the Middle
East beheading people and crucifying Christians. A radical Shia cleric in Iran trying to get a
nuclear weapon, the Chinese taking over the South China Sea…"
If the presence of the Islamic State in the Middle East precludes us from having an economy, then
those doing their Christmas shopping
early this year don't seem to be aware of it. As for the Iranians and their alleged quest for
nuclear weapons, IAEA inspectors
are at this
very moment verifying
the complete absence of such an effort – although Sen. Paul, who
stupidly opposed the Iran deal, is in
no position to point this out. As for the fate of the South China Sea – if we could take a poll,
I wonder how many Americans would rather have their budget out of balance in order to keep the Chinese
from constructing artificial islands a few miles off their own coastline. My guess: not many.
Playing the "isolationist" card got Rubio nowhere: I doubt if a third of the television audience
even knows what that term is supposed to mean. It may resonate in Washington, but out in the heartland
it carries little if any weight with people more concerned about their shrinking bank accounts than
the possibility that the South China Sea might fall to … the Chinese.
Ted Cruz underscored his sleaziness (and, incidentally, his entire election strategy) by jumping
in and claiming the "middle ground" between Rubio's fulsome internationalism and Paul's call to rein
in our extravagant military budget – by siding with Rubio. We can do what Rubio wants to do – radically
increase military expenditures – but first, he averred, we have to cut sugar subsidies so we can
afford it. This was an attack on Rubio's
enthusiasm
for sugar subsidies, without which, avers the Senator from the state that
produces the most sugar, "we lose the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we're
at the mercy of a foreign country for food security." Yes, there's a jihadist-Iranian-Chinese conspiracy
to deprive America of its sweet tooth – but not if President Rubio can stop it!
Cruz is a master at prodding the weaknesses of his opponents, but his math is way off: sugar subsidies
have cost us some $15 billion since 2008. Rubio's proposed military budget –
$696 billion – represents a $35 billion increase over what the
Pentagon is requesting. Cutting sugar subsidies – an unlikely prospect, especially given
the support of Republicans of Rubio's ilk for the program – won't pay for it.
However, if we want to go deeper into those weeds, Sen. Paul also
endorses the $696 billion figure, but touts the fact that his proposal comes with
cuts that will supposedly pay for the hike. This is something all those military contractors
can live with, and so everybody's happy, at least on the Republican side of the aisle, and yet the
likelihood of cutting $21 billion from "international affairs," never mind $20 billion from social
services, is unlikely to garner enough support from his own party – let alone the Democrats – to
get through Congress. So it's just more of Washington's kabuki theater: all symbolism,
no action.
Paul's too-clever-by-half legislative maneuvering may have effectively exposed Rubio – and
Sen. Tom Cotton, Marco's co-pilot on this flight into fiscal profligacy – as the faux-conservative
that he is, but it evaded the broader question attached to the issue of military spending: what are
we going to do with all that shiny-new military hardware? Send more weapons to Ukraine? Outfit an
expeditionary force to re-invade Iraq and venture into Syria? This brings to mind Madeleine Albright's
infamous remark
directed at Gen. Colin Powell: "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking
about if we can't use it?"
In this way, Paul undermines his own case against global intervention – and even his own eloquent
argument, advanced in answer to Rubio's contention that increasing the military budget would make
us "safer":
"I do not think we are any safer from bankruptcy court. As we go further, and further into
debt, we become less, and less safe. This is the most important thing we're going to talk about
tonight. Can you be a conservative, and be liberal on military spending? Can you be for unlimited
military spending, and say, Oh, I'm going to make the country safe? No, we need a safe country,
but, you know, we spend more on our military than the next ten countries combined."
I have to say Sen. Paul shone at this debate. His arguments were clear, consistent, and made with
calm forcefulness. He distinguished himself from the pack, including Trump, who said "I agree with
Marco, I agree with Ted," and went on to mouth his usual "bigger, better, stronger" hyperbole that
amounted to so much hot hair air.
Speaking of Trumpian hot air: Paul showed up The Donald for the ignorant blowhard he is by
pointing out, after another of Trump's jeremiads aimed at the Yellow Peril, that China is not a party
to the trade deal, which is aimed at deflecting Beijing. That was another shining moment for Paul,
who successfully juxtaposed his superior knowledge to Trump's babbling.
This obsession with China's allegedly malign influence extended to the next round, when foreign
policy was again the focus. In answer to a question about whether he supports President Obama's plan
to send Special Operations forces to Syria, Ben Carson said yes, because Russia is going to make
it "their base," oh, and by the way: "You know, the Chinese are there, as well as the Russians."
Unless he's talking about
these guys, Carson intel seems a bit off.
Jeb Bush gave the usual boilerplate, delivered in his preferred monotone, contradicting himself
when he endorsed a no-fly zone over Syria and then attacked Hillary Clinton for not offering "leadership"
– when she endorsed the idea practically
in unison with him. Bush added his usual incoherence to the mix by averring that somehow not
intervening more in the region "will have a huge impact on our economy" – but of course the last
time we intervened it had a
$2 trillion-plus impact in terms of costs, and that's a conservative estimate.
Oddly characterizing Russia's air strikes on the Islamic State as "aggression" – do our air strikes
count as aggression? – the clueless Marie Bartiromo asked Trump what he intends to do about it. Trump
evaded the question for a few minutes, going on about North Korea, Iran, and of course the Yellow
Peril, finally coming out with a great line that not even the newly-noninterventionist Sen. Paul
had the gumption to muster:
"If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, one-hundred percent,
and I can't understand how anybody would be against it."
Bush butted in with "But they aren't doing that," which is the Obama administration's
demonstrably inaccurate
line, and Trump made short work of him with the now
undeniable fact that the Islamic State blew up a Russian passenger jet with over 200 people on
it. "He [Putin] cannot be in love with these people," countered Trump. "He's going in, and we can
go in, and everybody should go in. As far as the Ukraine is concerned, we have a group of people,
and a group of countries, including Germany – tremendous economic behemoth – why are we always doing
the work?"
Why indeed.
Trump, for all his contradictions, gives voice to the "isolationist" populism that Rubio and
his neocon confederates despise, and which is implanted so deeply in the American consciousness.
Why us? Why are we paying everybody's bills? Why are we fighting everybody else's wars? It's a bad
deal!
This is why the neocons hate Trump's guts even more than they hate Paul. The former, after
all, is the frontrunner. What the War Party fears is that Trump's contradictory mixture of bluster
– "bigger, better, stronger!" – and complaints that our allies are taking advantage of us means a
victory for the dreaded "isolationists" at the polls.
As for Carly Fiorina and John Kasich: they merely served as a Greek chorus to the exhortations
of Rubio and Bush to take on Putin, Assad, Iran, China, and (in Trump's case) North Korea. They left
out Venezuela only because they ran out of time, and breath. Fiorina and Kasich were mirror images
of each other in their studied belligerence: both are aspiring vice-presidential running mates for
whatever Establishment candidate takes the prize.
Yes, it's election season, the one time – short of when we're about to invade yet another
country – when the American people are engaged with the foreign policy issues of the day. And what
we are seeing is a rising tide of disgust with our policy of global intervention – in a confused
inchoate sense, in the case of Trump, and in a focused, self-conscious, occasionally eloquent and
yet still slightly confused and inconsistent way in the case of Sen. Paul. Either way, the real voice
of the American heartland is being heard.
Bumpo
Im not so sure. If you see it in context with Trump's other message to make Mexico pay for
the border fence. If you take the Iraq war on the face of it - that is, we came in to rescue them
from Saddam Hussein - then taking their oil in payment is only "fair". It's hard to tell if he
is playing a game, or actually believes the US company line, though. I think he isn't letting
on. At least I hope so. And that goes double for his "Support" of Israel.
Joe Trader
@greenskeeper we get it, you get butt-hurt extremely easily
The thing about Donald Trump and oil - is that a few years ago, he said all that Saudi Arabia
had to do was start pumping oil, and down it would go to $25. Guess what sweet cheeks - His prediction
is coming true and the presidency could really use a guy like him who knows what he's doing.
MalteseFalcon
Say what you like about Trump. 'He is a baffoon or a blowhard'. 'He can't be elected president'.
But Trump has rocked the boat and raised some issues and viewpoints that none of the other
bought and paid for 'candidates' would ever have raised. Has he changed the national discussion
on these issues? At least he woken some people up.
illyia
oh.my.gawd. a rational adult series of comments on zero hedge: There is hopium for the world,
after all.
Just must say: Raimondo is an incredibly good writer. Very enjoyable to read. I am sure that's
why he's still around. He make a clear, concise argument, presents his case with humor and irony
and usually covers every angle.
I wonder about people like him, who think things out so well... versus, say, the bloviator
and chief?
P.S. don't blame me, i did not vote for either of them...
Oracle of Kypseli
The sentence of "We relied on the stupidity of the American voter" resonates.
TheObsoleteMan
What you did, was you fell for the oldest press trick in the book. It's called: "out of
context". That's is where they play back only a segment of what someone says, only a part of what
they want you to hear, so you will draw the wrong conclusion. What Trump said {had you listened
to ALL of what he said} was that he was going to TAKE ISIL'S OIL. Oil is the largest source of
revenue for them {then comes the CIA money}. If you were to remove their oil revenues from them,
they would be seriously hurting for cash to fund their machine. I don't have a problem with that.
The attacks on Trump have been relentless yet he is still maintaining his position in the
polls.
I expected a take out on Ben Carson, his next closest competitor to move up a CFR-aligned Globalist
like Shrubio or Cruz given their fall-back JEBPNAC is tanking so bad...but not this early. They
must be getting desperate...so desperate they are considering Romney?!
If it becomes 'Reagan/Bush Redux' again with Trump/Cruz, I hope The Donald has enough sense
to say NO! or, if elected, be very vigilant knowing you are Reagan and you have the GHW Bush equivalent
standing there to replace you...and we know how that unfolded early in Reagan's first term...NOT
GOOD
EDIT: The goal is to have a CFR candidate in both the GOP and Dem fold. Although Hillary
is not a CFR member ostensibly Slick Willie has been for more than 20 years and his Administration
was rife with them...Hello Rubin and Glass Steagal!!..as is Chelsea... a newly elected member.
The point is Justin seems to believe the Iranians have no intention of building a nuclear bomb
ever. I've read a lot of this guy's writing ever since he first came out on his own website and
when he wrote for AsiaTimesOnline. He's always had the opinion that the Iranians are not building
a nuclear bomb and have no intention to do so. He spews the same talking points about how they've
never attacked anyone in over two hundred years.
Well that's because previously they were under the control of the Ottoman empire and that didn't
break up until after WW1. I think he's got a blind spot in this regard. You can't tell me that
even the Japanese aren't secretly building nuclear weapons since China is becoming militarily
aggressive. And, stop being a prick. Your micro-aggressing against my safe place LTER and I'm
gonna have to report you for "hurtful" speech.
20 years plus of this accusation. Cia and dia both said no mil program.
If you have evidence summon it. Offering your suspicion as evidence is fucking absurd.
And if the israelis werent hell bent on taking the rest of palestine and brutalizing the natives
(which, by and large, they actually are) that would sure wet some of the anti isrsel powder.
But no / they want lebensraum and years of war for expansion and regional total hegemony.
Thrn they can ethnically cleanse the historical inhabitants while everyones busy watching white
european christisns kill each other, and muslims, as isis keeps not attacking israel or even isrseli
interests.
Youre not dumb, you just reached conclusions that are very weakened of not refuted by evidence
you wont even consider.
If you examine the policy detail Trump has provided, there is more substance there than any
of the others. Add to that he has a long record of successful management, which none of the others
have.
You don't manage successfully without self control. The persona he presents in politics at
present may give the impression of a lack of self control, yet that persona and the policies which
are/were verboten to the political class have quickly taken him to the top of the pack and kept
him there.
If you apply to Trump the saying "judge people by what they do, not what they say", his achievements
out of politics and now in politics show he is a more capable person than any of the others and
that he is successful at what he sets out to do.
As the economy for most Americans continues to worsen, which is baked in the cake, who is going
to look to the public a more credible person to turn it around, Clinton? Trump? one of the others?
The answer is pretty obvious.
European American
"I cannot take Trump seriously."
It's not about Trump as President, a year from now. Who knows if he'll even be in the picture
by then. It's ALL about Trump, RIGHT NOW. He's exposing the underbelly of a vile, hideous Z-creature
that we, here at ZH have seen for some time, but the masses, those who haven't connected enought
dots, yet, are getting a glimpse of something that has been foreign in politics, up until now.
Everytime Trump is interviewed, or tweets or stands at the debates, another round is shot over
the bow, or beak, of the monster creature that has been sucking the life out of humanity for decades,
centuries, eons. As long as he's standing and he can pull it off, that is what this phenomenon
is all about...one day at a time....shedding light where the stench of darkness has been breeding
corruption for the last millenium.
MASTER OF UNIVERSE
Neocons hate because their collective ethos is that of a single misanthrope that crafted their
existence in the first place. In brief, neocons are fascist narrow minded automatons not really
capable of a level of consciousness that would enable them to think critically, and independently,
of the clique orthodoxy that guides their myopic thinking, or lack thereof. Neocons have no history
aside from Corporatism, and Fascism.
Escrava Isaura
American Decline: Causes and Consequences
Grand Area (after WW-2) to be under US control: Western Hemisphere, the Far East, the former
British empire - including the crucial Middle East oil reserves - and as much of Eurasia as possible,
or at the very least its core industrial regions in Western Europe and the southern European states.
The latter were regarded as essential for ensuring control of Middle East energy resources.
It means: Africa resources go to Europe. Asia resources go to Japan. South America resources
go to US.
Now (2019) the Conundrum: Where will China get the resources needed for its survival? And Russia
is not Africa.
"[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global
complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic
sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak,
the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant." ? Zbigniew
Brzezinski
Bazza McKenzie
Through either ignorance or malice the author repeats Rand Paul's statement about Trump's comments
re China and the TPP.
Trump explicitly said the TPP provides a back door opportunity for China, thus noting he understands
China is not an initial signatory to TPP.
The backdoor opportunity occurs in 2 ways. The ability for TPP to expand its signatory countries
without going back to the legislatures of existing signatory countries AND the fact that products
claiming to be made in TPP countries and eligible for TPP arrangements don't have to be wholly
made in those countries, or perhaps even mainly made in those countries. China will certainly
be taking advantage of that.
The fact that Paul does not apparently understand these points, despite being a Senator, displays
an unfortunate ignorance unless of course he was just attempting to score a political point despite
knowing it to be false.
Paul at least made his comment in the heat of the moment in a debate. Raimondo has had plenty
of time to get the facts right but does not. How much of the rest of his screed is garbage?
socalbeach
I got the impression Trump thought China was part of the trade deal from this quote:
"Yes. Well, the currency manipulation they don't discuss in the agreement, which is a
disaster. If you look at the way China and India and almost everybody takes advantage of the
United States - China in particular, because they're so good. It's the number-one abuser of
this country. And if you look at the way they take advantage, it's through currency manipulation.
It's not even discussed in the almost 6,000-page agreement. It's not even discussed."
If China isn't part of the agreement, then what difference does it make whether or not currency
manipulation is discussed? Your answer is that Trump meant they could be added to the agreement
later, as in this previous quote of his:
"The TPP is horrible deal. It is a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble.
It's a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door
and totally take advantage of everyone."
If that's the case, Trump didn't explain himself well in this instance.
Neocons should not be used as a synonym for 'militarist.'
That subset was absolutely a Jewish-Zionist movement originating at the U of Chicago whether
you know the history or not. Its also obvious just verboden to discuss. Not because its false,
but because its true.
Neocons aren't conservative - they are zioglobalists with primary concern for Israel.
There are several groups of militarists in the deep state, but the Israel Firster faction is
predominant.
Fucking obviously.
Arthur
Gee I guess we should back Iran and Isis. Must be some great jewish conspiricy that keeps you
impovrished, that or maybe you are just a moron.
Johnny Horscaulk
Idiot, the us, and israel ARE backing isis. Go back to watching fox news - this is all way
over your willingness to spend time reading about. You clearly have an internet connection - but
you utter palpable nonsense.
OldPhart
Arthur
When/where I grew up I'd never met a jew. I think there was one black family in the two hundred
fifty square miles of the town, population 2,200 in 1976. I knew jackshit other than they were
greased by nazis back in WWII.
Moved out of the desert to Orlando, Flawed?-Duh. Met a lot of regular jews. Good people, best
man's dad and mom had tattoo'd numbers on thier arms. To me, their just regular people that have
some other sort of religion that christianity is an offshoot from.
What I've learned is that Zionism is lead by a relative few of the jewish faith, many regular
jews resent it as an abomination of jewish faith. Zionists are the self-selected political elite
and are in no way keepers of the jewish faith. They are the equivalent, in Israel, to the CFR
here. Oddly, they also comprise many of the CFR seats HERE.
Zionists do not represent the jews any more than Jamie Diamond, Blythe Masters, Warren Buffet,
or Bill Gates represent ordinary Americans. Somehow, over time, Zionists came to wield massive
influence within our government and corporate institutions.
Those are the simple facts that I have been able to glean from piles of research that are massively
biased in both directions.
It's not a jewish conspiracy that keeps many impoverished, it's the Zionists that keep many
impoverished, at war, divided, ignorant, and given bread and circuses. Not jews.
Perhaps you should spend a few years doing a little independent research of your own before
belittling something you obviously have no clue about.
Johnny Horscaulk
That rhetorical ballet aside, Israel has far far too much influence on us policy, and that
is so because of wildly disproportionate Jewish... As such... Political, financial, media, etc
power. And they - AS A GROUP -act in their in-group interests even when resulting policy is not
in this country's interest - demanding, with 50 million Scoffield JudeoChristians that Israels
interests be of utmost value...
And heres the kicker - as defined by an Israel under likud and shas, parties so odious they
make golden dawn look leftist, yet get no msm criticism for being so.
Its never 'all' any group - but Israels influence is excessive and deleterious, and that is
due to jewish power and influence, with the xian zios giving the votes. Framed this way, it isnt
'Zionism' - it is simply a powerful minority with deep loyalty to a tiny foreign state warping
us policy - and media coverage.
MEFOBILLS
Arthur,
Iran is formerly Persia, and its people are predominantly Shia. Shia's are considered apostates
by Sunni's. Isis is Sunni. Sunnis get their funding via the Petrodollar system.
Persians changed their name to Iran to let northern Europeans know they were Aryans. Persians
are not Arabs.
Neo-Con's are Jewish and they have fellow travelers who are non jewish. Many of their fellow
travelers are Sayanim or Zionist Christians. So, Neo-Con ideology is no longer specifically Jewish,
but it certainly has Jewish antecedents.
Your comment is full of illogic, is misinformed, and then you have the laughable temerity to
call out someone else as a moron.
I Write Code
The only place "neocons" still exist is at ZH. Whatever Wikipedia says about it, the term had
virtually no currency in the US before 2001, and had pretty much ceased to have any influence
by about 2005.
Is Rubio sounding like an interventionist? Yes. Does he really know what he's talking about?
Unclear. Is Trump sounding like a non-interventionist? Yes. Does he really know what he's talking
about? Almost certainly not. Trump is the non-interventionist who wants to bomb the shit out of
ISIS.
Rand didn't do anything to embarass himself at the latest debate, but he also didn't stand
out enough to make up for many past errors. Give him a few years, maybe he'll grow up or something.
But the harder question is, what *should* the US do about stuff? Should we cowboy on alone,
or pull back because none of the other kids want to help us. Can't we make common cause with Russia
and France at this point? I mean instead of Iran and Turkey? The biggest problem is of course
Obama - whatever various national interests at this point, nobody in the world thinks they can
trust Nobel boy as far as they can spit a rat. Would anyone want to trust Rubio or Trump? Would
you?
Johnny Horscaulk
Nonsense - read this for background beginning with the philosopher Strauss. It has a fixed
meaning that was subjected to semantic drift in the media. It came to be conflated with 'militarist'
and the conservative thing was a misnomer they were communists who wanted to use American power
for israel.
After listening to the press for the last week, I have come to a conclusion concerning Mr.
Bush: The party big wigs have decided he can not win and are distancing their support for him.
Their new golden boy? Marco Rubio. The press in the last week has barely mentioned Bush, but
every breath has been about "the young Latino". "He's rising in the polls".
I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard that on radio and the TV. They also had him on
Meet The Press last Sunday. Just thought I'd mention it. I can't stand Rubio. When he ran for
Senate down here a few years ago, he road to Washington on the Tea Party's back. As soon as he
got there, he did what all good politicians do: Dumped their platform and forgot all about them.
Scumbag.
neilhorn
Yes, I have also seen the new "golden boy" regaled in the media. Let's see where he goes.
I wonder if anyone represents the American people any better than the corrupt piece of dried up
persimmon that is Hillary?
Raymond_K._Hessel
Trump picks cruz as veep, offends moderate and lefty independents and latinos on the immigration
stuff, kisses Likuds ass (2 million right wing batshit jews out of 8 million israeli voters in
asia dominate us foreign policy via nutty, aipac, adl, jinsa, conf of pres, etc etc etc)
And he loses to hillary. The gop can not win this election. Sorry - but admit the direness
of our situation - shitty candidates all and one of the very worst and most essentially disingenuous-
will win because women and minorities and lefties outnumber right leaning white males.
This is super obviously the political situation.
So - how do we 'prepare' for hillary? She is more wars, more printing, more wall st, more israel
just like everyone but sanders who is nonetheless a crazy person and arch statist though I respect
his at least not being a hyperinterventionist mic cocksucker.
But fucking hillary clinton gets in.
What does it mean apart from the same old thing?
Red team blue team same thing on wars, banks, and bending the knee to batshit psycho bibi.
cherry picker
I don't think Americans are really ready for Bill to be the First Man, do you? I don't think
Americans think about that aspect of Hillary becoming Pres.
Personally, I hope she doesn't get in. There are many other women that are capable who could
fit the bill, if the US is bound and determined to have a female president.
"indeed, in our post-constitutional era, now that Congress has abdicated its responsibility,
he has the de facto power to single-handedly take us into war. Which is why,
paraphrasing Trotsky, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is certainly interested
in you."
The post-constitutional era is the present time. Congress is stifled by politics while the
rest of us only desire that the rights of the people are protected. The President has never been
granted the right to take our nation to war. Other presidents have usurped that power and taken
the power to themseves. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all taken
on the right to kill anyone who defied the right of the presidency. However, when the people ever
abrogated their right to wage war it was only in response to a police state being established
that threatened those who opposed the power of the established authority. Congress, the representatives
of the people, has the right to declare war. Congress is also obligated to represent the people
who elected them. When will we find a representative who has the backbone to stop the suicidal
tendencies of the structures of power?
Captain Obvious.
Don't set store by any politician. They were all sent as a group to suck Israeli dick. Yes,
dear Donald too. They will tell you what they think you want to hear.
Raymond_K._Hessel
Ivanka converted to judaism and all - was that for the grooms parents or genuine? Or a dynastic
thing?
Wahooo
Another hit piece today in Barrons:
"Donald Trump is trying hard to look presidential these days. Too bad he's using Herbert
Hoover as a role model. Hoover, of course, is best remembered as having been president during
the stock market crash of 1929 that presaged the Great Depression. What helped turn a normal
recession into a global economic disaster was the spread of protectionism, starting with the
Smoot-Hawley tariff, which resulted in retaliation even before Hoover signed the bill in 1930."
If I recall my history, in 1927 amidst what everyone knew was already bubble stock market,
the Fed dropped rates substantially. This was done against the protests of President Coolidge,
his secretary of treasury, and many other politicians and business tycoons at the time. It ushered
in a stock market bubble of massive proportions and the coming bust. Protectionism had little
to do with it.
Faeriedust
Right. The "protectionism" meme is a piece of corporate persiflage that's been duly trotted
out every time someone suggests even SLIGHTLY protecting our decimated economy. According to Wiki:
"the general view is that while it had negative results, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was not one of
the main causes of the Great Depression because foreign trade was only a small sector of the U.S.
economy."
Faeriedust
Well, what REALLY caused the Depression were the bills from WWI. Every nation in Europe had
spent years of GNP on the War through debt, all the debts were due, and nobody could afford to
pay them. So they loaded the whole pile on Germany, and then screamed when Germany literally could
NOT make its payments, and then played extend-and-pretend for a decade. Which eventually caused
the Credit-Anstallt collapse, and then everything finally fell like a house of cards.
Very like today, but the current run of bills were run up by pure financial frivolity and corruption.
Although one could say that fighting a war that killed 1/4 of all European males of fighting age
was an exercise in frivolity and corruption on the part of Europe's senile ruling elites. Nobody
was willing to divide a shrinking pie equitably; they all thought it would be better to try grabbing
The Whole Thing. Rather like world powers today, again.
CAPT DRAKE
educated, responsible position in a fortune 200company, and yes, will be voting for trump.
why? sick to death of the existing elites, and the way they run things. a trump vote is a protest
vote. a protest against the neocons and all their types that have caused so much misery around
the world.
NoWayJose
If Trump is the Republucan nominee, you can bet that he will point out a lot of things Hillary
has done. You know several others in the field will say nothing bad about Hillary. (A la Romney).
Not sure why Rubio still has support - Rand clobbered him on spending, including his new entitlement,
and add Rubio's position on amnesty.
Faeriedust
With JEB polling in single digits and hopelessly befuddled, Rubio is the Great Hispanic
Hope of the establishment Republocrats. He is being well-pimped, is all. Paul is clearly more
intelligent, more articulate, and more well-informed; Trump is more forceful and popular (but
independent!). Neither suits an establishment that wants to hold the reins behind the throne.
thesoothsayer
The Military Industrial Complex became entrenched after Eisenhower left office and they murdered
Kennedy. Since then, they have taken over. We cover the world to spread our seeds and enrich our
corporations. Our government does not protect the people, it protects the corporations, wall street.
That is the reality.
"... I agree. Excellent point on the frack log, but at some point with the reduced rate of drilling the frack log will dwindle. Let's take the Bakken where we have the best numbers, Enno estimates around 800 DUC wells (rough guess from memory), to make things simple let's assume no more wells are drilled because prices are so low. If 80 wells per month are completed the DUCs are gone in July 2016. Now the no wells drilled is probably not realistic. If 40 wells per month are drilled (though at these oil prices I still don't understand why) the 800 DUCs would last for 20 months rather than only 10 months, so your story makes sense at least for the Bakken. ..."
"... One thing to be careful with the fracklog, is that not all of these will be good wells. ..."
"... I agree that high cost will be likely to reduce demand. The optimistic forecasts assume there will be low cost supply judging by the price scenarios. For AEO 2013 Brent remains under $110/b (2013$) until 2031 and only reaches $141/b (2013$) in 2040. ..."
"... "Debt repayments will increase for the rest of the decade, with $72 billion maturing this year, about $85 billion in 2016 and $129 billion in 2017, according to BMI Research. About $550 billion in bonds and loans are due for repayment over the next five years. ..."
"... U.S. drillers account for 20 percent of the debt due in 2015, ..."
"Mr Falih, who is also health minister, forecast the market would come into balance in the new
year, and then demand would start to suck up inventories and storage on oil tankers. "Hopefully,
however, there will be enough investment to meet the needs beyond 2017."
Other officials also estimated that it would probably take one to two years for the market to
clear up the oil market glut, allowing prices to recover towards $70-$80 a barrel."
"Non-OPEC supply is expected to fall in 2016, only one year after
the deep cuts in investment," he said.
"Beyond 2016, the fall in non-OPEC supply is likely to accelerate, as the cancellation
and postponement of projects will start feeding into future supplies, and the impact of previous
record investments on oil output starts to fade away."
I thought just about everyone was expecting a rebound in production by 2017?
The EIA. IEA. OPEC and most others expect non-OPEC production, excluding the U.S.
and Canada to decline in 2016 and the next few years due to the decline in investments and postponement
/ canceling of new projects.
Production in Canada is still projected to continue to grow, but at a much slower rate than previously
expected.
Finally, U.S. C+C production is expected to rebound in the second half of 2016 due to slightly
higher oil prices ($55-57/bbl WTI). Also, U.S. NGL production proved much more resilient, than
C+C, despite very low NGL prices.
Non-OPEC ex U.S. and Canada total liquids supply (mb/d) Source: EIA STEO October 2015
Thanks. I don't think oil prices at $56/b is enough to increase the drilling in the LTO
plays to the extent that output will increase, it may stop the decline and result in a plateau, it's
hard to know.
On the "liquids" forecast, the NGL is not adjusted for energy content as it should be, each barrel
of NGL has only 70% of the energy content of an average C+C barrel and the every 10 barrels of NGL
should be counted as 7 barrels so that the liquids are reported in barrels of oil equivalent (or
better yet report the output in gigajoules (1E9) or exajoules(1E18)). The same conversion should
be done for ethanol as well.
Note that not only the EIA, but also the IEA, OPEC, energy consultancies and investment
banks are projecting a recovery in US oil production in the later part of next year.
That said, I agree with you that $56 WTI projected by the EIA may not be sufficient to trigger
a fast rebound in drilling activity.
However there is also a backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells that could be completed and put
into operation with slightly higher oil prices.
Most shale companies have announced further cuts in investment budgets in 2016, so I think it is
difficult to expect significant growth in the U.S. onshore oil production in 2H16.
If and when oil prices reach $65-70/bbl, I think LTO may start to recover (probably in 2017 ?).
I think that annual growth rates will never reach 1mb/d+ seen in 2012-14, but 0.5 mb/d annual average
growth is quite possible for several years with oil prices exceeding $70.
I agree. Excellent point on the frack log, but at some point with the reduced rate of
drilling the frack log will dwindle. Let's take the Bakken where we have the best numbers, Enno estimates
around 800 DUC wells (rough guess from memory), to make things simple let's assume no more wells
are drilled because prices are so low. If 80 wells per month are completed the DUCs are gone in July
2016. Now the no wells drilled is probably not realistic. If 40 wells per month are drilled (though
at these oil prices I still don't understand why) the 800 DUCs would last for 20 months rather than
only 10 months, so your story makes sense at least for the Bakken.
I have no idea what the frack log looks like for the Eagle Ford. If its similar to the Bakken
and they complete 130 new wells per month, with about 61 oil rigs currently turning in the EF they
can drill 80 wells per month, so they would need 50 wells each month from the frack log. If there
are 800 DUCs, then that would last for 16 months.
The economics are better in the Eagle Ford because the wells are cheaper and transport costs are
lower, but the EUR of the wells is also lower (230 kb vs 336 kb), the well profile has a thinner
tail than the Bakken wells. I am not too confident about the EIA's DPR predictions for the Eagle
Ford, output will decrease, but perhaps they(EIA) assume the frack log is zero and that only 75 new
wells will be added to the Eagle Ford each month. If my guess of 150 new wells per month on average
from Sept to Dec 2015 is correct, then decline from August to Dec 204 will only be about 100 kb/d
and 255 kb/d from March to Dec 2015 (155 kb/d from March to August 2015).
One thing to be careful with the fracklog, is that not all of these will be good wells.
It is fair enough that companies like EOG will have some good DUCs, (should there be a "k" in that?)
in their fracklogs. But as the fracklog is worked through, I am sure there will be a some very ugly
DUCklings, that nobody wants to admit to. How many fall into this category, will be anybodies guess, but not all DUC, will turn out to be beautiful
swans?
On the predictions of the EIA and IEA, they also expect total oil supply to be quite
high in 2040. For example the EIA in their International Energy Outlook reference case they have C+C output
at 99 Mb/d in 2040.
Their short term forecasts are probably better than that, but my expectation for 2040 C+C output
is 62 Mb/d (which many believe is seriously optimistic, though you have never expressed an opinion
as far as I remember).
So I take many of these forecasts with a grain of salt, they are often more optimistic than me,
others are far more pessimistic, the middle ground is sometimes more realistic.
You said above that estimated URR of all global C+C (ex oil sands in Canada and Venezuela)
is 2500 Gb. And about 1250 Gb of C+C had been produced at the end of 2014. So the remaining resources
are 1250 Gb.
BP estimates total global proved oil reserves as of 2014 at 1700 Gb, or 1313 excluding Canadian
oil sands and Venezuela's extra heavy oil. Their estimate in 2000 was 1301 Gb and 1126 Gb. Hence,
despite cumulative production of 419 Gb in 2001-2014, proved reserves increased by 187 Gb, or 400
Gb including oil sands and Venezuela's Orinoco oil. Note that BP's estimate is for proved (not P+P)
reserves, but it includes C+C+NGLs. My very rough guess is that NGLs account for between 5% and 10%
of the total.
You may be skeptical about BP's estimates, but the fact is that proved reserves or 2P resources
are not a constant number; they are increasing due to new discoveries and technological advances.
BTW, the EIA's estimate of global C+C production increasing from 79 mb/d in 2014 to 99 mb/d in
2040 implies a cumulative output of 836 Gb, about 2/3 of your estimate of remaining 2P resources
of C+C or BP's estimate of the current proved reserves. Given future discoveries and improvements
in technology, I think that further growth of global oil production to about 100 mb/d by 2040 should
not be constrained by resource scarcity.
What can really make the EIA's and IEA's estimates too optimistic is not the depleting resource
base, but the high cost of future supply, political factors and/or lower than expected demand.
You are quite optimistic. Note that I add 300 Gb to the 2500 Gb Hubbert Linearization estimate to account for reserve growth
and discoveries.
The oil reserves reported in the BP Statistical review are 1312 Gb. Jean Laherrere estimates that
about 300 Gb of OPEC reserves are "political" to keep quotas at appropriate levels with respect to
"true" reserve levels. So the actual 2P reserves are likely to be 1010 Gb. Some of the cumulative
C+C output is extra heavy oil so the cumulative C+C-XH output is 1240 Gb so we have a total cumulative
discovery (cumulative output plus 2P reserves) of 2250 Gb through 2014.
My medium scenario with a URR of 2800 Gb of C+C-XH plus 600 Gb of XH oil (3400 Gb total C+C) assumes
550 Gb of discoveries plus reserve growth.
What do you expect for a URR for C+C?
Keep in mind that at some point oil prices rise to a level that substitutes for much of present
oil use will become competitive, so oil prices above $175/b (in 2015$) are unlikely to be sustained
in my view.
In a wider format below I will present a scenario with what extraction rates would be needed for
my medium scenario to reach 99 Mb/d in 2040.
I agree that high cost will be likely to reduce demand. The optimistic forecasts assume
there will be low cost supply judging by the price scenarios. For AEO 2013 Brent remains under $110/b
(2013$) until 2031 and only reaches $141/b (2013$) in 2040.
Depleting resources will raise production cost to more than these prices and demand will be reduced
due to high oil prices. There will be an interaction between depletion and the economics of supply and demand. It will
be depletion that raises costs, which will raise prices and reduce demand.
"Debt repayments will increase for the rest of the decade, with $72 billion maturing this year,
about $85 billion in 2016 and $129 billion in 2017, according to BMI Research. About $550 billion
in bonds and loans are due for repayment over the next five years.
U.S. drillers account for 20 percent of the debt due in 2015, Chinese companies rank second with
12 percent and U.K. producers represent 9 percent."
[These are just the bonds that have yields higher than 10%]
[Its very unlikely that prices will recover in time to save many of the drillers, and even if
prices recover, even $75 oil will not help since they need $90 to break even to service the debt.
Also not sure who is going to buy maturing debt so it can be rolled over. Even if prices slowly recover,
there is likely to be fewer people willing to loan money drillers.]
It's not just the oil. The oil is convenient to point at because the US can pretend that
they got SA to cause the drop in order to stick it to Russia. Makes the US look really smug.
Meanwhile the truth is, copper down, zinc down, iron ore down, you name it down.
Baltic Dry almost crashing, soft commodities gone to hell. I guess SA can also influence
these markets as well.
"... Looking at the recent moves in exchange rates based on a simple switch in expectation of whether or not the Fed would raise rates in December or wait one or two meetings its seems obvious that the markets are not very good at anticipation. So I would not put much money on the ability of the markets to anticipate the trajectory and endpoint of raising rates - or the ability of anybody to guess where the exchange rates will go next. ..."
"... The drop in hours worked data in the productivity report is very confusing. ..."
"... I think lower oil prices has lead to a stronger consumption boost than initially thought. ..."
Have U.S. financial market stress indicators worsened substantially?
Has the U.S. labor market returned to normal?
What will the headline inflation rate be once the effects of the oil price shock dissipate?
Will the U.S. dollar continue to gain value against rival currencies?
I would add:
Will wage gains translate into inflation (or something along those lines)?
Anything else?
sanjait said in reply to Anonymous...
Markets move based on expectations of both economic fundamentals and the Fed's reaction
function. So both can create surprises.
In this case, a relatively stronger than expected US economy could push the dollar up quite a
bit. The central bank would be expected to dampen but not eliminate this effect, even without
changing their perceived reaction function.
DeDude said in reply to Anonymous... , November 10, 2015 at 02:35 PM
Looking at the recent moves in exchange rates based on a simple switch in expectation
of whether or not the Fed would raise rates in December or wait one or two meetings its seems
obvious that the markets are not very good at anticipation. So I would not put much money on
the ability of the markets to anticipate the trajectory and endpoint of raising rates - or the
ability of anybody to guess where the exchange rates will go next.
What we can say is that the strengthening of the US$ that has happened recently will hurt the
economy - whether it will hurt enough to slow the Fed is anybodies guess. Whether those
guesses have already been baked into the exchange rates is impossible to predict.
Bert Schlitz said...
On Angry Bear, there is a post about 3rd quarter hours and Spencer's remark:
"The drop in hours worked data in the productivity report is very confusing.
The employment shows several measures of hours worked and they increased in the third
quarter from 0.5% to 1,08 for aggregate weekly payrolls.
Something is really change.
The productivity report also had unit labor cost rising more than prices,
This implies falling profits, what the S&P 500 shows."
Basically wages accelerated rapidly in the 3rd quarter. The BLS didn't start catching up to it
until October. My guess the hours drop and employment picks up trying to hold down costs.
However, this will probably only level off things off for a few quarters, which would be good
enough to profits catch back up until the labor market becomes so tight, they simply have no
choice but to raise prices and hours worked surge again. Classic mid-cycle behavior (which
Lambert should have noticed).
This is what triggered the 3rd quarter selloff and inventory correction. That foreign stuff
was for show. I think lower oil prices has lead to a stronger consumption boost than
initially thought.
am said...
Clicked on this link for the answers but it is 34 blank pages, so i'll go for:
1. No, they'll just devalue when need be to soften the landing. I think they will do another
one before the end of the year.
2. No idea.
3. Near it if you believe the Atlanta Fed. They have a detailed analysis on their blog.
4. 2.2 if you believe the St Louis Fed, end of December for the oil price decline washout from
the system. So inflation will creep up by the end of the year.
5. Yes and more so if they raise the rate.
6. No. because it will just be oil led not wages (see 4).
Anything else: the weather with apologies to PeterK.
anne said...
I am really having increasing trouble understanding, how is it that having a Democratic
President means making sure appointments from the State or Defense Department to the Federal
Reserve are highly conservative and even Republican. Republicans will not even need to elect a
President to have conservatives strewn about the government:
"... do not just own shares in American banks, they own mainly voting shares. It these financial companies that exercise the real control over the US banking system. ..."
Financial holding companies
like the Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation, FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock, Northern Trust, Capital
World Investors, Massachusetts Financial Services, Price (T. Rowe) Associates Inc., Dodge & Cox Inc.,
Invesco Ltd., Franklin Resources, Inc., АХА, Capital Group Companies, Pacific Investment Management
Co. (PIMCO) and several others do not just own shares in American banks, they own mainly voting
shares. It these financial companies that exercise the real control over the US banking system.
Some analysts believe that
just four financial companies make up the main body of shareholders of Wall Street banks. The other
shareholder companies either do not fall into the key shareholder category, or they are controlled
by the same 'big four' either directly or through a chain of intermediaries. Table 4 provides a summary
of the main shareholders of the leading US banks.
Table 4.
Leading institutional shareholders of the
main US banks
Name of shareholder company
Controlled assets, valuation (trillions of dollars; date
of evaluation in brackets)
Number of employees
Vanguard Group
3 (autumn 2014)
12,000
State Street Corporation
2.35 (mid-2013)
29,500
FMR (Fidelity)
4.9 (April 2014)
41,000
Black Rock
4.57 (end of 2013)
11,400
Evaluations of the amount
of assets under the control of financial companies that are shareholders of the main US banks are
rather arbitrary and are revised periodically. In some cases, the evaluations only include the companies'
main assets, while in others they also include assets that have been transferred over to the companies'
control. In any event, the size of their controlled assets is impressive. In the autumn of 2013,
the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was at the top of the list of the world's banks
ranked by asset size with assets totaling $3.1 trillion. At that point in time, the Bank of America
had the most assets in the US banking system ($2.1 trillion). Just behind were US banks like Citigroup
($1.9 trillion) and Wells Fargo ($1.5 trillion).
"... But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs ..."
"... This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment versus establishment. ..."
"... In most cases, international agreements are negotiated by elites that have more in common with each other than with working people in the countries that they represent. ..."
"... when we negotiate economic agreements with these poorer countries, we are negotiating with people from the same class. That is, people whose interests are like ours – on the side of capital ..."
"... Accordingly, the fundamental purpose of the neo-liberal polices of the past 20 years has been to discipline labor in order to free capital from having to bargain with workers over the gains from rising productivity. ..."
"... Moreover, unregulated globalization in one stroke puts government's domestic policies decisively on the side of capital. In an economy that is growing based on its domestic market, rising wages help everyone because they increase purchasing power and consumer demand – which is the major driver of economic growth in a modern economy. But in an economy whose growth depends on foreign markets, rising domestic wages are a problem, because they add to the burden of competing internationally. ..."
"... Both the international financial institutions and the WTO have powers to enforce protection of investors' rights among nations, the former through the denial of financing, the latter through trade sanctions. But the institution charged with protecting workers' rights – the International Labor Organization (ILO) – has no enforcement power. ..."
But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration
of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by
which the economy runs. ...
Dan Kervick said...
"This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment
versus establishment."
I think this is probably right, but the established parties are doing their best to prevent
it. Each of them has an interest in continuing to divide people along various cultural, religious
and ethnic identity lines in order to prevent them from achieving any kind of effective solidarity
along class lines.
Anyway, I fear we may be headed toward a turbulent and very unpleasant future.
Kenneth D said...
"Rethinking the Global Political Economy" By Jeff Faux April 24, 2002
In most cases, international agreements are negotiated by elites that have more in common with
each other than with working people in the countries that they represent. As a retired U.S. State
Department official put it to me bluntly a few years ago, "What you don't understand," he said,
"is that when we negotiate economic agreements with these poorer countries, we are negotiating
with people from the same class. That is, people whose interests are like ours – on the side of
capital."
Accordingly, the fundamental purpose of the neo-liberal polices of the past 20 years has
been to discipline labor in order to free capital from having to bargain with workers over the
gains from rising productivity.
But labor is typically at a disadvantage because it usually bargains under conditions of excess
supply of unemployed workers. Moreover, the forced liberalization of finance and trade provides
enormous bargaining leverage to capital, because it can now threaten to leave the economy altogether.
Moreover, unregulated globalization in one stroke puts government's domestic policies decisively
on the side of capital. In an economy that is growing based on its domestic market, rising wages
help everyone because they increase purchasing power and consumer demand – which is the major
driver of economic growth in a modern economy. But in an economy whose growth depends on foreign
markets, rising domestic wages are a problem, because they add to the burden of competing internationally.
Both the international financial institutions and the WTO have powers to enforce protection
of investors' rights among nations, the former through the denial of financing, the latter through
trade sanctions. But the institution charged with protecting workers' rights – the International
Labor Organization (ILO) – has no enforcement power.
"... Organizational culture and behavior is a critical factor in the success of any business. The intense emphasis most American businesses place on numbers to the exclusion of almost any other consideration is a major contributor to the vast amount of corporate control fraud we have witnessed in the past decade or so. ..."
"... One of the fundamental tenets of Reaganism/Libertarianism is that "The Ends Justify the Means." The financial sector is not the only institution in our civilization that is failing due to this mind-set. The best form of regulation is simply holding up a mirror to a firm or agency and asking questions such as, "In this organization, when is it OK to lie?" ..."
Fascinating research. Thanks for posting this, Yves.
Organizational culture and behavior is a critical factor in the success of any business.
The intense emphasis most American businesses place on numbers to the exclusion of almost any
other consideration is a major contributor to the vast amount of corporate control fraud we
have witnessed in the past decade or so.
Unfortunately, I don't see any of these executive psychopaths putting themselves through the
self-assessment that is one of the necessary steps mentioned in the study. At least, not
voluntarily.
Sluggeaux, November 7, 2015 at 11:39 am
Important.
One of the fundamental tenets of Reaganism/Libertarianism is that "The Ends Justify the
Means." The financial sector is not the only institution in our civilization that is failing
due to this mind-set. The best form of regulation is simply holding up a mirror to a firm or
agency and asking questions such as, "In this organization, when is it OK to lie?"
"... And why is the US seeking a battle with Russia anyway? This is completely absurd....are the neo-cons/neo-libs this fucked up? ..."
"... Having said the above, the prevailing view on the ground in Moscow is that it will be NATO that pre-emptively attacks Russia, hence the refurbishing and re-provisioning of their network of Civil Defence shelters, info via Brother in Law (BNP Paribas Moscow). ..."
"... US/EU GDP approaches 40 trillion dollars. Russia has fallen down below 2 trillion due to the drop in oil prices. 25 to 1 disparity. ..."
"... US population 330 million. EU population 504 million. Russian population 142 million. 6-1 disparity. ..."
"... Carter says Russia, China potentially threaten global order. WTF! These idiots really believe America rules the world! Every country should fear us and do as we say. No other country should EVER dare to challenge our oligarchy. Good for Russia and China for finally saying enough. We patrol the South China Sea like it's our own f***ing bathtub. If China did that to us in the Gulf of Mexico we would already be at war. The GLOBAL F***ING ORDER? Who made us kings of the world? ..."
"... If the neocons think they can bring war to soil mere miles away from Russia and not get a nuclear response if they start losing or we breach a russian boder, theyre insane. Unfortunately one look at current policy confirms that yes, indeed, theyre insane. ..."
"... Any negative assessment of US military capability originating from within the military-industrial complex, must necessarily be considered suspect. First, that assessment would be considered highly classified, unless it was pre-approved and deliberately released to scare more money out of already fleeced taxpayers. Second, .Gov used the same propaganda in our decades-long cold war with the USSR to justify massive spending and involvement in global conflicts. Profligate spending and profligate lies leave them with no credibility. ..."
The Saker wrote a very insightful post on this matter a while back
US political culture and propaganda has deeply ingrained in the minds of those exposed to
the corporate media the notion that weapons or technologies win wars. This is not so. Or, not
really so.
Yes, when the difference in technologies is very big AND very wide, meaning a full generational
change across most key weapon systems, this can help. But not one weapon system alone, and
not when the difference in quality is marginal.
Furthermore, a simpler, more "primitive" weapon which totally outclassed on the testing
range can suddenly become much better suited to real combat then some techno-marvel. This is,
by the way, one of the biggest problems with US weapons. Here is how they are designed:
You take all the latest and most advanced technologies, put them together, then create a
new "superior" design, then design a new mission profile to fit that design, then sell (figuratively
and literally) the new concept to Congress, especially to those Congressmen who come from the
districts where production is planned - and, voilà, you have your brand new top of the line
US weapon. And the costs? Who cares?! Just print some more money, and that's it.
Russian weapons are designed in a totally different way:
Take a mission profile, determine a need, then take all the cheapest, simplest and most
reliable technologies available and combine them into your weapon system, then have that prototype
tested in military units, then modify the weapons system according to the military's reaction
and then produce it.
In other words, US weapons are designed my engineers and produced by businessmen and politicians,
they are not really designed for war at all. Russian weapons, in contrast, are ordered by the
military and created by design bureaus and they have only one objective: real, dirty and ugly
warfare.
This is why the good old MiG-29 could fly better with its old fashioned hydraulics then
the F-18s with fly-by-wire. It was never that the Russians could not built fly-by-wire aircraft
(the SU-27 already had it), but that for the MiG-29 design goals, it was not needed.
What I am getting at here is two things: a) US weapons are not nearly as good as their marketing
and b) "older" Russian weapons are often much better for actual warfighting.
Let's say the US delivers large quantities of Javelin's to the junta. So what? All that
Russia will have to do in reaction is deliver 9M133 Kornets to the Novorussians. Can you guess
which system is both cheaper and better?
When the US gave the junta counter-battery radars what did Russia do? The same thing. Now
both sides have them.
Now here comes the key question: which of the two sides relies more on armor and artillery?
Exactly - the junta.
When confronted with a problems, Americans love to do to things: throw money at it and throw
technological "solutions" at it. This never works, but that is what they are good at.
The fact is that even in the 21st century what wins wars is not money or fancy gear, but
courage, determination, moral strength, willpower and the rage which seizes you when faced
with brute, ugly evil.
Russia does have some technological advantages over the U.S. though.
Russian missile technology is superior.
The S-400 surface to air defence system is two generations better than anything else in the world.
Russian missiles are superior too. Their ICMB's fly random path trajectories. They are the masters
of multiple engine rockets.
Only the Russians have the ability to put a man in space.
America is a little self deluded and they too often extrapolate their warplane technology advantage
into a blanket technology advantage. That's just not the case.
Perimetr
"Well now, it seems entirely possible that the US may have to fight a conventional war against
the Russians . . ."
Sorry, exactly how long do you think a war with Russia would remain CONVENTIONAL?
As soon a one side or the other started to lose, what do you think would happen? They will surrender?
Demdere
Guys, do not believe anyone who says that any part of any system is managable. Saying "I can
win a war" is the same as saying "I can see the future and inside other men's minds". No you an't.
You are throwing dice every time, and war is a very negative-sum game, most players don't even
break even. Both can easily lose very badly, far more han they ever could have conceviablely won.
I believe all modern wars have been of thar variety.
The cost of bad government keeps increasing. The cost of sufficient firepower to cause a 1% loss
of GDP is within the budget of a religious cult with intelligence service ties. We spend more
than 25$ of our GDP on policing, monitoring, checking, verifying. The overhead of our military
is at least 10% of GDP, our industry would kill for that kind of cost advantage. The costs of
dishonest are so huge.
runswithscissors
And why is the US seeking a "battle" with Russia anyway? This is completely absurd....are
the neo-cons/neo-libs this fucked up?
V for ...
Yep. The new Bolsheviks are criminally insane.
1033eruth
The US? No, Uncle Fraud is trying to get Americans to condone and approve another war through
constant media manipulation.
Every major war needs public approval. It doesn't happen until the media maneuvers American zombies
into acceptance.
Kent State was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam war. The losses we were incurring were
too great for the public to accept. Which also helps to explain why we have switched over to remote
control and drone warfare. We can still spend ocean carriers of money which the American public
overlooks as a cost for "safety" and the loss of life is minimized therefore less backlash.
Tell me why this hasn't occurred to you?
booboo
More scarey bullshit to whip up more support for spending trillions on another armored up coffin,
flying battleship or space shotgun, not that I am under any illusion that the U.S. would win but
God Damn, if you don't start a fucking war then you won't have to fight a war.
Blankone
Yes, this. And it works well because all sides lap it up. The MIC has the politicians push
the agenda and fear. TPTB have the MSM push it and the sheep eat it up like always. The Putin
fan club jumps on the band wagon because its the fantasy they wish was true.
Russia Would "Annihilate" US In Head-To-Head Battle
No wonder the Nobel Prize Winner is pushing Putin into a new world war. CIA created ISIS
blows up Russian passenger jet. F-15s sent to Turkey to attack Russian jets. Obama continues
to attack oil to bankrupt Russia.
US deploys F-15s to Syria, targeting Russian jets
By Thomas Gaist, 7 November 2015
The US will send a squadron of F-15C fighter jets to Turkey's Incirlik air base, the US Defense
Department (DOD) announced on Friday. The nature of the US war planes, which are specifically
designed for dogfighting with other highly advanced fighter jets, indicates that the deployment
carries a significance far beyond what its small scale would suggest.
The F-15 line of combat jets was developed in response to the unveiling in 1967 of the Soviet
Union's MiG-25 "Foxbat" interceptor.
Because they are designed for air-to-air combat against other major powers, the US
has, until now, seen no need to deploy the F-15C model to its Middle Eastern and Central Asian
war theaters, where the opposing forces have no warplanes.
The sudden deployment, coming less than two months after Russia began sending its own SU-30
fighters to its new airbase at Latakia, makes clear that the jets have been deployed in response
to Moscow's air campaign.
Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, allegedly struck a deal with King Abdullah in September
under which the Saudis would sell crude at below the prevailing market price. That would help
explain why the price has been falling at a time when, given the turmoil in Iraq and
Syria
caused by Islamic State, it would normally have been rising.
I dispute that the F-15 was ever intended as a dogfighter. It is fast, much faster than the
SU-30 and it can carry an impressive bomb load, but I believe the original design was rapid penetration
of enemy defenses and air to ground, not air superiority. All that of course comes only when the
F-15 is loaded down with not only fuselage conformant fuel tanks but drop tanks as well, reducing
it's effectiveness. When you compare thrust, aerodynamics, stand off weapons and sheer manoevering
capability the SU-30 wins hands down. The only air-to-air weapon the F-15's have been retrofitted
with that even comes close to the air-to-air that the Russians have is the British Meteor, but
that has never been tested. It is a Mach 4 weapon so the SU-30 couldn't outrun it or out climb
it, but I remain to be convinced about it's capabilities.
The larger problem for the Americans is that they are stationing their F-15's at Incirlik, which
is only 15 minutes from Latakia. Incirlikk was a poor choice for them to be stationing those units
when the stated intention was to fly missions against ISIS. If the Syrians/Russians detect the
F-15's coming south instead of going east they will have only a few moments to decide on whether
to launch S-400's against them, and in an environment that might have a heigntened level of intensity
that is a danger. Needless to say, an S-400 launced against an F-15 will take the later out in
seconds and no amount of chaffe of manoevering with change that scenario. Check mate.
Blankone
Check mate? They are moving that close to the Russian bases to squeeze Russia and occupy the
area. It is a sign they have no fear of Russia being willng to confront.
Dark Daze
Either that or a sign of sheer stupidity and a willingness to sacrifice men and material.
Talleyrand
Russia is not going to attack the Baltic states. Russia is not going to invade Poland. Russia
is not going to attack the anachronism that is NATO.
On the other hand, invading Russia has, historically, proven to be a bad idea.
cowdiddly
Just more of this Russophobia boogeyman bullshit to get more funds appropriated for their sick
toys and paychecks so they can continue getting their butt kicked all over the globe by anyone
more powerful than Somalia.
Parrotile
Jack, Russia has no reason to "invade Europe" since Europe has nothing of immediate benefit
to Russia. Having said that Russia will certainly not "telegraph" their intentions by troop movements,
and will certainly use their rather capable missile tech to "soften up" EU defences should the
opportunity arise. Air defence needs runways, and armies need reliable bulk transport (motorways
/ rail), the key locations of which (marshalling yards / major intersections) are well known to
Russia.
They will not just "roll over the border" and say "come and get us" to the West.
Having said the above, the prevailing view "on the ground" in Moscow is that it will be NATO
that pre-emptively attacks Russia, hence the refurbishing and re-provisioning of their network
of Civil Defence shelters, info via Brother in Law (BNP Paribas Moscow).
tarabel
Let's review here...
NATO is larger than it ever was before, and Russia is much smaller and weaker than the USSR/Warsaw
Pact.
Soviet armor is not parked in central Germany any more.
Vladimir Putin complains endlessly about NATO forces being forward deployed to his border regions.
Virtually every single member of the US military and many cadres from other NATO nations have
years of real world battlefield experience, while only a small number of Russians have been shot
at.
US/EU GDP approaches 40 trillion dollars. Russia has fallen down below 2 trillion due to the
drop in oil prices. 25 to 1 disparity.
US population 330 million. EU population 504 million. Russian population 142 million. 6-1
disparity.
Russian "breakout" from nuclear treaties that limited weapons to an approximate 1-1 parity means
that they are stronger in nuclear weapons than the United States, but the nuclear forces of the
UK and France mean that the West still possesses a slight but shrinking superiority here
And now you understand why Russia has officially and unilaterally renounced the solemn old Soviet
declaration of "no first use" of nuclear weapons. Any conventional war between the West and Russia
will end in ruin for Russia even if they can make some hay early on. The economic and population
disparities are far too wide for Putin to prevail or even defend his country-- unless he goes
nuclear. It is the only type of warfighting in which the sides are remotely equal.
The West has no need or interest in going nuclear on Russia in the event of hostilities. No matter
what sort of initial success Russian armies may achieve in the early stages of a war that starts
next door to their depots, the economic power of the West is far too much for him to overcome
with conventional means.
Draw your own conclusions as to who needs to light the first Roman Candle.
rejected
"Virtually every single member of the US military and many cadres from other NATO nations have
years of real world battlefield experience, while only a small number of Russians have been shot
at."
Yes,,, but fighting who? Vietnam, a real war, was too long ago. The veterans are old so their
experience will be of no use.
The Iraqi's were surrendering so fast it was slowing down the advance on Baghdad.
Libya,,, bombed into a failed state,,, other than the Marines having to defend the gun running
US Ambassador there was no fighting.
In Syria our Ally "moderate terrorists" are / was doing the grunt work against Assad.
And we're still fighting (losing) the cave dwellers of Afghanistan 15 years later. In fact they
are now advancing against the puppet US government.
Russia will never attack the West but the West will attack Russia because the West is broke. That
GDP your referring to was purchased by central bank printing.
The Russian Army will be defending their nation, Nato/US Armies will be trying to establish an
empire.
Who do you think will have the most incentive.
HyeM
This is all propaganda.... they're using words like "Annihilate" to terrify the public and
get an even larger budget for the military-industrial complex to benefit them and their friends
in the defense industry. For the last 80 years we were going to be "Annihilated", first by the
Soviet Army, and now this crap.
rbg81
I remember freshman ROTC lectures back in 1979. The USSR was poised to invade West Germany
via the Fulda Gap--they could come over at any minute. Ivan was ten feet tall. Blah, blah, blah.
Then, after the Berlin Wall fell, two generations of scary propaganda looked like a big joke.
Nothing ever changes.
I Write Code
Anybody interested, please click on the link and read the Politico article yourself.
This ZH posting completely misrepresents what the article says.
The article is really about McMaster and the good news that he's still in the game at the Pentagon.
And in two out of three scenarios the US beats Russia, apparently even in this expeditionary scenario.
Now, the whole thing is absurd. The idea that the US and Russia would end up firing major weapons
at each other is a mutual nightmare. And the idea that the US would pit a small force against
Russia, right against Russian territory, and expect to win, is doubly absurd.
But the Politico article is actually worth reading anyway, and for that, thank you ZH.
rejected
Great!!! Our team wins!
Could have went any way....
V for ...
Fairness, justice, freedom. These are more than words. They are deeds. That was the pledge
of the U.S. Military code before it was overtaken by dual citizens like the Wolfowitz Doctrine,
Project for a New American Century; those who declare to be the 'chosen ones', and use my country,
my people's blood and treasure.
Get off your knees, US Military Code. I have no interest in the failures of dual citizens,
and nor should you. My country, tis of thee. Foreigners should fund their own fight.
"Carter says Russia, China potentially threaten global order." WTF! These idiots really
believe America rules the world! Every country should fear us and do as we say. No other country
should EVER dare to challenge our oligarchy. Good for Russia and China for finally saying enough.
We patrol the South China Sea like it's our own f***ing bathtub. If China did that to us in the
Gulf of Mexico we would already be at war. The GLOBAL F***ING ORDER? Who made us kings of the
world?
These guys are sick. We need to pull our fleets and troops out and go home and stay there. Let
China and Russia deal with Japan, Taiwan and Syria. Guaranteed these guys will get us into a major
war soon. Obama is too weak to fight the MIC. They fill his head with crap about how no country
should dare to challenge us.
Americans cannot tolerate large losses. They expect to always kick ass and suffer few losses.
The new missile technology has changed all that. Watch the reaction when one of our aircraft carriers
goes to the bottom from a dozen simultaneous missile strikes. The oligarchs know they can count
on Joe Sixpack believing all their propaganda spewing forth and set his 300lb ass in his living
room chair saying, "Let's go kick China and Russia's asses."
seek
If the neocons think they can bring war to soil mere miles away from Russia and not get
a nuclear response if they start losing or we breach a russian boder, they're insane. Unfortunately
one look at current policy confirms that yes, indeed, they're insane. Just pray they only
target political and financial centers when the missiles fly. Might leave us in a better place.
lasvegaspersona
Eisenhower said war is man's greatest folly and those who pursue it or fail to prevent it are
a black mark on all of humanity
...wonder if these military geniuses have read THAT military history...
Eisenhower warned about a new thing in his time, something called a military industrial complex.
The modern Zionist talks about the MIC being a conspiracy theory, but Eisenhower said it would
have 'grave implications', and we 'must guard against ...the military industrial complex...never
let it endanger our liberties...'.
Charles Offdensen
What a bullshit article. If the US were to truly go all out war and not give a damn about public
opinion, which is media driven for the purpose of tying our hands visa vie Amercan public feeling
and emotions, we would by any stretch of the means and definition wipe the floor with any country
any where.
The problem is that most people don't realize or care to understand what it takes to win a war.
Since when did the enemy give a rats ass about how they killed us. They don't, so why should we
care about them or the civilians who have been so brutalized to the point of pure survival who
only want the pain to stop no matter who delivers it. And that includes their slave masters which
has been discussed ad nausium her at ZH.
Ask yourself. Do you really think people who have been raped and brutalized are going to be better
off if we play nice or are they going to do whatever it takes to survive and that means not giving
a shit about anyone else but you.
War is hell. There are no two ways about it. But do you sacrifice your objective just to win the
hearts and minds of those that would probably shoot you because they can't tell which way is up
or down? Especially those from a distinction all third world and seventh century mentality.
To win you have to do what is necessary regardless of judgment because judgment is what defeats
us in battle.
Blood is thicker than water. The dual citizens think they have captured the USA. I know they
have a tiger by the tail.
'they' serve money first by their hideous Talmud, and 'they' are going to die by it.
'they' enjoyed the protection of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, yet strive to destroy those
American ways.
F'ck 'em. Don't worry about them.. Let them die in their desert sandpit.
Dark Daze
There was a time, not so long ago, when the US at least tried to maintain the illusion that
they were the 'good guys'. Of course history paints an entirely different picture. As I have written
many times, from Latin America, South America, China, South East Asia, Africa and now the middle
east, the US has overthrown, bombed, murdered, screwed over, enslaved and otherwise brutalised
most of the worlds population. Let's not forget that it was less than 40 years from the American
Revolution when the US started it's wars of conquest by trying to invade Canada while Britain
was tied up with Napoleon.
Glad to see that there is at leasrt one American who makes no bones about his/her true intentions,
which is total world domination. Unfortunately for you, you're economy is wrecked, your banks
and government are bankrupt, you have no gold left, your population is seething in it's anger
and you're vaunted war machine is phoney. So go ahead, try the Chinese or the Russians on for
size and see what happens.
docinthehouse
If Russia and China were smart, they would improve theirr own country's infrastructure and
let the West continue to rot of its own accord. You get what you accept Ameirca and the west have
becomes slaves to debt and a tolerance of freeloading. You get what you accept.
Setarcos
Er! Russia and China ARE improving their infrastructures, Russia especially since sanctions
gave a strong impetus.
Have you seen the new bridge being built to Crimea and what a about Sochi, the new technology
centre near Moscow, revitalized Vladivostok and the new Cosmodrom, for instance.
Agricultural production is way up and manufacturing is being ramped up.
marcusfenix
as an aside to this piece there was another interesting disclosure regarding the growing gaps
in capabilities the US would have to overcome if Washington ever engaged Russia in a conventional
war.
namely the cruise missile strikes from the Caspian flotilla, while they did not make a difference
in the course of the battle in Syria they did show that Russia has a capability that the US Navy
does not and could put them at a serious disadvantage in any engagement. it wasn't the missiles
themselves though they did show a vast improvement in Russian long range guided missile capabilities
but how they were delivered that is cause for concern in DC.
unlike the US navy which relies exclusively on larger blue water destroyers for it's long range
cruise missile delivery, the missiles fired from the Caspian sea were launched from much smaller,
faster and more agile corvettes. long range strike capability from a package that is much harder
to find, track, target and hit than the US navy's guided missile and aegis destroyers.
this capability has countless advantages but Washington never pursued it's development and apparently
did not expect Moscow to either. but now not only did Moscow do just that they proved to the world
that they can use it in combat in essence rendering the entire US navy's carrier fleet obsolete.
consider this small of a ship, under 90 tons, can position itself anywhere up to 900 miles away
and fire up to 12 LRAS missiles from areas where larger ships and even subs simply can not operate.
all while still retaining blue water mission capabilities.
it is simply smaller, faster, more flexible, more cost effective and smarter than anything the
US navy has to offer. these corvettes are relatively easy to produce and maintain and can be built
in large numbers on short notice, they are hard to hunt and hard to kill and can sink carriers
from hundreds of miles away.
instead of investing in practical, usable tech like this DC sinks one trillion dollars in the
F-35 which still isn't near production and is already obsolete. as one US air force general testified
before congress the Russians have had the ability to overcome the Lightnings stealth capabilities
for at least 15 years now and in a dog fight it would get shredded by even a 1960's Mig 21 because
it is to under powered to generate attack angels and "turns like a garbage truck".
now I wonder how many guided missile corvettes could one trillion dollars buy?
Flankspeed60
Any negative assessment of US military capability originating from within the military-industrial
complex, must necessarily be considered suspect. First, that assessment would be considered highly
classified, unless it was pre-approved and deliberately released to scare more money out of already
fleeced taxpayers. Second, .Gov used the same propaganda in our decades-long cold war with the
USSR to justify massive spending and involvement in global conflicts. Profligate spending and
profligate lies leave them with no credibility.
tool
Exactly talking their own book fear mongering to increase their allocated budget and by god
they will find away to spend every last cent. Remember the recent Afghan compressed natural gas
outlet should have cost 500k actually cost billions!
"... Actually oil accounts for only about 15% of the Russian economy, which is rapidly diversifying because of the impetus provided by sanctions. ..."
"... Ironically too, because oil is still mainly traded in inflated USD and the ruble devalued, the price drop is not as great as it seems at first glance, and because internal trade, manufacturing, etc. is conducted in rubles, the impact is lessened even more. ..."
"... The USSR collapsed because the people, the foundation of support, were disgusted and disillusioned with a system with pervasive corruption at the top, while the majority suffered deprivation. ..."
"... Actually the Soviet Union was dismantled from above. The ruling (elite) group - in government, managers of large industries, academics, etc. wanted the economic privileges available in capitalist countries. Circa 80% of the population (i.e., working people) supported the Soviet Union and socialism and were the ones whose living standards collapsed following the conversion to capitalism. See- Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System by David Kotz and Fred Weir ..."
While the American Empire still exists and has extended its imperialistic reach, it is a very
different empire from the days of the Reaganites. Most obviously, the Rule of Law is dead. Saturation
corruption permeates this now rancid empire.
Financial criminals (primarily based in the U.S.) commit crimes literally a
thousand times larger than anything previously seen in our history, and then repeat these crimes
again and again. The U.S. 'Justice' Department spends its time not in prosecuting and incarcerating
these criminals (and criminalized "banks"). Rather, it expends its energies
explaining why it refuses to prosecute these criminals.
The primary "prey" of this banking crime syndicate is now the American people and the
U.S. economy , itself. The United States has not merely become insolvent, it is obviously bankrupt.
The
Oligarchs who control its puppet government literally shipped the U.S. manufacturing base to
the low-wage regimes of Asia, which ironically included China. As a result, the once-envied U.S.
Middle Class has been transformed into
the Working Poor .
In most respects (outside of economic parameters), the American Empire would be judged to be "stronger
than ever". Clearly this is true militarily. Despite having no real "enemies" since the defeat-by-default
of the Soviet Union, U.S. Neo-Cons have been busy as beavers inventing Boogeymen (and then destroying
them) in order to justify the continued, relentless expansion of its war machine.
Politically, successively more-fascist regimes have rendered the U.S. Constitution essentially
obsolete. Legally illegitimate (i.e. null-and-void),
fascist laws have been wallpapered over the Constitution, stripping the American people of their
rights and liberties.
In legitimate democracies, Constitutions are the ultimate Law of the Land, which serve primarily
to protect the People from the State. In fascist regimes, invariably illegitimate governments create
endless laws designed to protect the State from the People. The American Empire used to represent
the former paradigm. Now it epitomizes
the latter .
At one time, the closer that one moved toward the "heart" of the American Empire, the more strict
was adherence to the Rule of Law. Today, the closer one approaches to the political cesspool known
as "Washington, D.C.", or the
financial cesspool known as "Wall Street", the more-overpowering becomes the stench of corruption
– and lawlessness.
In a perverse twist of fate, the American Empire now mirrors the Soviet Union, in almost every
respect. In the Soviet Union, voters were given the choice of two candidates, in what it called "elections".
However both of those candidates represented the Communist Party.
In the American Empire, voters are also given the choice of two candidates, they simply pretend
to represent two, different parties. Incredibly, this political charade has managed to persist for
at least a century.
"There is no material difference now in the old political parties, except which shall control
the patronage."
- (former Congressman/prosecutor) Charles Lindbergh Sr.,
The Economic Pinch (p.61), 1923
Perhaps more significantly, the American Empire now bears considerable resemblance to the Roman
Empire, as well. Historians are in agreement that at the time the Roman Empire was at the absolute
peak of its military might that "the decline of the Roman Empire" had already been underway for
centuries.
Where the ancient Roman Empire differs from the modern American Empire is that in the 21 st century,
events – including the rise-and-fall of empires – progress much, much more rapidly. Roughly speaking,
what used to stretch over centuries now takes place in decades. Instant communication, rapid global
transportation, computerization, and numerous, other technological advances are responsible for this
accelerated pace of political/economic/social evolution.
Morally and economically bankrupt, the American Empire now relies more and more heavily on its
Big Stick, which it wields with ever more impunity and recklessness. Statesmen such as
Ron Paul and
Paul Craig Roberts have regularly warned that the current generation of Neo-Cons (who wield all,
real power in the U.S. government) are marching relentlessly toward World War III.
However, while we see Psychopaths on the left/West, we see an entirely opposite political dynamic
in the East. The strengthening alliance between China and Russia, represents two, large, global powers
which (at least at this point in time) demonstrate no imperial aspirations. But this is only one
significant way in which the East differs from the West.
In an essay titled Grandmaster Putin's Trap , Russian writer Dmitry Kalinichenko provides
us with aninsightful
allegory . Cold War II is not a militarily-oriented confrontation, rather it is a geopolitical
chess match. The important point here is that only one "side" understands how to play (and win) a
chess match.
How does a skilled chess-player achieve victory? Positioning, positioning, and more positioning.
It is only once one's opponent has been completely out-positioned that any thought is given to overt
attack. Chess is a game of patience, and (often) a game of simply waiting for one's opponent to self-destruct,
via strategic error, or mere impatience.
This brings us back to the current geopolitical stage. In the East, we see Russia and China constantly
engaged in improving their position. Unlike the American Empire, they are improving their economies
– notcannibalizing
them. They are relentlessly adding to their
gold reserves ("He who has the gold makes the rules" – The Golden Rule), while the American
Empire has squandered most of its
own reserves .
While the U.S., and the West, in general, unremittingly alienates the Rest of the World, Russia
and China have been rapidly improving their political and economic cooperation with other nations.
While the political/economic institutions created or sponsored by the American Empire lose their
legitimacy due to corruption, Russia and China are creating parallel, corruption-free institutions
– to replace them.
If this was a real chess match, the player on the left would have already 'pushed over his King'
(i.e. capitulated). The player on the right now has such superior position that the outcome of the
game is no longer in doubt. However, this is not a game, but rather real life – where one side has
utterly no respect for anything resembling "rules".
Russia and China are clearly headed for victory-by-default in Cold War II. The psychopaths of
the American Empire have demonstrated that they are ready-and-willing to do literally anything to
prevent this seemingly inevitable outcome. For this reason, the warnings of people such as Ron Paul
and Paul Craig Roberts should be given our most serious consideration.
GreatUncle
Russia & China, you might want to add India too.
It is called mutual support because as each year passes the US becomes more and more aggressive
and to be out on your own and a threat to those in power there you will be turned upon to keep
you in your place.
If anything I expect this coalition of nations to only get stronger because if any become isolated
and seems to be current foreign policy with Russia you are in for a bit of brutality. Then once
one side or the other is eliminated and that can be economically too they will turn on the another
to keep them in their place.
Top dog is always going to have an inferiority complex against any who may challenge it.
Consequence? In the last decade reckon under its own steam the US has magnificently turned
a substantial portion of the global population against it. It might not be in the MSM, it will
be undercurrents of all the brutality like killing innocent citizens with drones or a shoot to
kill policy by the US military and the if you are not with us you are against us mentality.
laomei
Russia and China are clearly headed for victory-by-default in Cold War II.
Lol, the Russian economy is collapsing, it relies entirely on oil and oil is dirt cheap. Russia
gave the EU an out with sanctions to tear up the contracts and will soon be able to turn to alternative
sources. That leaves China as their main partner for oil, while Russia buys up cheap Chinese garbage.
But, at the same time, China is more or less in the same position as Mexico was, combined with
systemic problem that are virtually identical to the Japan bust. It's a ticking time bomb and
the government is literally locking up anyone who dares to even suggest that such a thing is even
possible now. Purely out of fear that someone might be listening. China is still dealing with
record outflows of cash and is rapidly liquidating those vast reserves. Once the economic growth
drops (official numbers or not), there will be no choice left but to devale, which is great for
exporters, but toxic for all companies that have borrowed USD. It's enough to destroy entirely
their advanced sectors, and they do not have the willing labor at competitive rates to rush back
to manufacture like they used to.
Setarcos
Actually oil accounts for only about 15% of the Russian economy, which is rapidly diversifying
because of the impetus provided by sanctions.
Ironically too, because oil is still mainly traded in inflated USD and the ruble devalued,
the price drop is not as great as it seems at first glance, and because internal trade, manufacturing,
etc. is conducted in rubles, the impact is lessened even more.
bthunder
If corruption is what brings empires down, then considering level of corruption in China and
Russia vs in the US of A, Russia and China will collapse long before USA will.
As far as Putin's "grandmaster" skills supposedly demonstrated by Russia's "positioning, positioning,
and more positioning", during 15 years of his rule Russia's economy has been positioned for oil
exports, nat gas exports, and more oil exports. That takes some grndmaster-like skills indeed.
Now that he's involved in 2 conflicts and China is refusing to pay previously negotiated prices
for oil and nat gas (china demands discounts to reflect current low prices) it will be interesting
to see how he can conduct and pay for 2 wars at the same time.
Crash N. Burn
"As far as Putin's "grandmaster" skills..."
Perhaps you should have clicked the link in that paragraph:
"After realizing its failure in Ukraine, the West, led by the US set out to destroy Russian
economy by lowering oil prices, and accordingly gas prices as the main budget sources of export
revenue in Russia and the main sources of replenishment of Russian gold reserves....
..Putin is selling Russian oil and gas only for physical gold.
Putin is not shouting about it all over the world. And of course, he still accepts US dollars
as an intermediate means of payment. But he immediately exchanges all these dollars obtained from
the sale of oil and gas for physical gold!..
..in the third quarter the purchases by Russia of physical gold are at all-time high record
levels. In the third quarter of this year, Russia had purchased an incredible amount of gold in
the amount of 55 tons. It's more than all the central banks of all countries of the world combined"
The USSR collapsed because the people, the foundation of support, were disgusted and disillusioned
with a system with pervasive corruption at the top, while the majority suffered deprivation.
Now things have reversed, it is Americas turn.
Freddie
The USSR was totally corrupt just like the USA today. The USA has been on a slipperly slope
since before the Banksters - Civil War. I pretty much expected when Obola was selected by Soros
and other zios that the uSA was headed towards an implosion like the old USSR.
Phillyguy
Actually the Soviet Union was dismantled from above. The ruling (elite) group - in government,
managers of large industries, academics, etc. wanted the economic privileges available in capitalist
countries. Circa 80% of the population (i.e., working people) supported the Soviet Union and socialism
and were the ones whose living standards collapsed following the conversion to capitalism. See-
Revolution From Above: The Demise of the Soviet System by David Kotz and Fred Weir
I suggest checking an atlas, or googlemap. "mother Russia" most certainly included Belarus
and, arguably, some if not all of Ukraine. They don't seem to be part of the Russian federation
nowadays.
"Unlike the American Empire, they are improving their economies – not
cannibalizing them."
That's, unfortunately, very arguable about Russia. Russia lived on the oil price highs of the
last 10 years, but its economy is largely unchanged, imports
are rampant, agriculturecan't
keep up with internal demandand infrastructures, in general but in particular in
the immense Asian part,
has not much changed since the 90s, or maybe even 60s (with the exception of the
oil related projects) and corruption is omnipresent.
1] Belarus is not technically part of Russia, but in many way it is and still heading for greater
integration. Belarus is now part of what is legally called Union State of Russia and Belarus.
Interestingly, although economic integration has proved difficult at this point, the
two states are integrated militarily. Besides, Belarus is a member of the Eurasian Union, which
is a Russian parallel to the European Union. It is perhaps more easy for Russia to have this Union
instead of incorporating the former Soviet countries directly into Russia again. Although there
are regions, who would very much like to rejoin Russia directly, but cannot do so, because it
would provoke fury of the American Empire. So all the integration and rejoining must be done very
quietly and under the blanket for now.
2) asian part,
has not much changed since the 90s: ummm....this has been true for entire thousands
of year long history of Russia. It is incredibly difficult for Russia to develop all its territory,
because it is huge. Russia will need help of China and other Asian states to do this. But cities
like Vladivostok have changed for better already and are booming. There are plans for greater
development of those regions and many projects in place. One of them is the new Russian cosmodrome,
which will provide jobs and centre of life for many people, once it is completed. But of course,
developing those regions is an enormous effort for generations to come, which Putin can only start
and his successors will have to continue.
3) Apart from Far East, Russia is also positioning itself in the Artics, building bases and
projects. This is also task for future generations.
4) Russian economy is certainly not unchanged! Russia jumped higher in the ranking of easy
to do business chart and the World Bank says that d oing Business in
Russia is now easier than in China. Russian debts (both state and external)
are still decreasing and gold reserves growing. Agriculture is self-sufficient already (no Russians
dying from hunger and import bans still in place). It also has much to improve, but Russians can
now feed themselves without the help of the West. For example dairy production has grown 26%.
And more than that, for example Russia is now surpassing USA in wheat export. Poorer regions like
Africa and Middle-Eastern countries like Egypt and Iran are buying more and more food from Russia,
as it is cheaper.
5) Imports rampant? I don't get what rampant means, but imports are much smaller than last
year and still dropping. And most imports are now undertandably coming from China.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/imports
6) Corruption is also decreasing and it is nowhere as terrible as in the USA (if only for the
simple reason that Russia does not print money and does not increase its debts, so the amount
of money to steal from is limited). This should be an example for future Americans. Corruption
will always exist, but it will be much less, if you don't print money out of nothing and if you
don't increase debts to pass them on to your children.
People tend to forget that Russia, despite being an old civilization, is actually a very young
as a state in the current form. Its economy and capitalism have had far less time to develop than
USA! The Russian Constitution was created only in 1993, so even its political system is very young.
So it is logical that everything is still in its beginnings and evolving. Russia is now where
USA was in, say, 1791:-) But that is not necessarily a bad thing, as Russians still have a lot
of space for creativity and building of their state - they are in the beginning of a new cycle,
while USA is in the end of a cycle.
And you don't seem to understand the arguments made.
1) The writer said that "mother Russi has remained intact". Belarus and Ukraine are part of
teh concept of "MOther Russia". ukraine goes without saying, considering that it is where the
whole concept of Russia begun (you know, Kievan Rus?). Now, Belarus was part of Kievan Rus and
Minsk itself was settled by Russians in the 9th century (the city proper was created in the 11th,
still by Russians). yes, it could be argued is that the polonization process that happened once
it came under the Polish-Lithuanian union when the Russian state had been conquered by the mongols
set belarus culturally and linguistically apart for a few centuries, but ideally, Belarus is undoubtly
part of "mother Russia". You seem to know little of the history of the place yourself for accusing
othes not to know much of it.
2) yes, indeed... but still, not even you countered my argument that infrastructure is basically
what it used to be. of course, not exactly what it used to be.. note that I used "largely the
same". there are a few exceptions.
3) true, but artict exploration is like the space age race of the 60s: a show of power and
a technological feat, with large upfront costs and with limited impact on the real economy (or
rather, a large impact, but on a very long timeframe since the technologies ended up mainstream).
4) saying that doing business in Russia in easier than in China is not saying much, considering
how closed to foreigners the Chinese economy is (the fact that it is open to FDI doesn't mean
it is an open economy, even if many confuse the two things). Russia can feed itself with grain
and potatoes, of course, and it can also export them (as it has done for decades in its history),
but it cannot actually produce for a diversified internal demand, forcing people to either pay
a large premium for imports (even larger now with sanctions, hence the reduction of imports) or
go for second line products via import substitution. the reason why food prices jumped with sanctions
is that Russia wasn't able to produce enough to make do for the food it imported and prices raised
as goods were to few to meet demand. There's simply no easier evidence than that AND the fact
that just last july the ministry of agricolture for Russia promised MASSIVE subsidies to the agricolture
sector to stimulate production. So, are we really arguing the insufficiency of Russian agricoltural
sector? Which brings as to...
5) ...You confuse the fact that imports are slowing due the economic crisis and ruble depreciation
with economic strenght, which is funny. Truth is, if you remove oil from russian exports, the
balance of trade of Russia is utterly negative and getting worse. Russia is not Saudi Arabia,
of course, where everythign revolves around oil, but most of the economic resurgence of the Putin
era is due to oil windfall and not much has been done to improve other sectors of the economy.
proof is, there is no major company that is considered a major player which has been born in Russia
in the last 20 years. All top russian companies are oil related (Gazprom, Rosnef and Lukoil) or
financial (which raised due the financial needs and revenues of oil), while there is a (relative)
desert in services and computer technology. Russia has been and largely continue to be, a raw
material exporting country with heavy industries tied to raw materials and armaments, not much
of an advanced tertiary or high value added items economy. And I add, unfortunately so, as nothing
would please me more to see a strong enough Russia to limit the American idiocy around Europe
and teh middle East. The world has gone insane since the loss of a counterweight.
6) your understanding of corruption is.. well, not understanding. Corruption isn't tied to
money production, it is tied with money transfers within an economy. If you have to pay for a
permission or a to move goods around, that is a net loss for the economy. In transpareny international
index, Russian CPI was 24 in 2014, ranking it 136 of 175 countries, in 2012 it was 28. It IS improving,
but it's still one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
One can be a Russian fan (I am), but denying the limits of the country's economy doesn't help.
Putin himself understands the limits and that's the reason why Russian isn't, differently than
the US id in Iraq and Afghanistan, going with its army in Ukraine or Syria: they don't have the
financial means to sustain a ground war. I wish Russia a bright future, but they have much to
improve and their economy has much to diversify to self sustain.
Btw, Russia has another, immense bordering on the catastrophic, problem and that is demography.
Between very low natality and, until very recently, a lowering life expectancy (which is still
one of the lowest , if not the lowest, of all advanced economies) Russians risk to go extincted
to irrilevance by the end of the century (but at least, they are not following the folly of our
Europeans to substitute disappearing locals with muslims from the middle east and Africa). I really
hope they will manage to reverse the trend.
Lucky Leprachaun
Destruction from within? Undoubtedly. Caused by Americans themselves? More problematical. You
see the agents of this destruction - Neocons, banksters, Cultural Marxist degenerates - are largely
the 'rootless cosmopolitans' of legend, with at best a transient attachment to the country.
In after Snowden world, is this a testament that most smartphone users are idiots, or what ?
Notable quotes:
"... The company said mobile advertising in the third quarter accounted for a colossal 78 percent of its ad revenue, up from 66 percent a year ago. ..."
Facebook is so far defying concerns about its spending habits - a criticism that has at times
also plagued Amazon and Alphabet's Google - because the social network is on a short list of tech
companies that make money from the wealth of mobile visitors to its smartphone app and website.
The company said mobile advertising in the third quarter accounted for a colossal 78 percent
of its ad revenue, up from 66 percent a year ago.
... ... ...
Revenue was also bolstered by Facebook increasing the number of ads it showed users over the
past year, said David Wehner, the company's chief financial officer. And video advertising, a
growth area for Facebook, is on the rise: More than eight billion video views happen on the
social network every day, the company said.
Hand in hand with the increased advertising is more users to view the promotions. The number of
daily active users of Facebook exceeded one billion for the first time in the quarter, up 17
percent from a year earlier, with monthly active mobile users up 23 percent, to 1.4 billion.
... ... ...
Beyond the properties it owns, Facebook is dabbling in partnerships with media companies that
could prove lucrative in the future. In May, the company debuted a feature called Instant
Articles with a handful of publishers, including The New York Times, which lets users read
articles from directly inside the Facebook app without being directed to a web browser.
Corruption == inequality: "Corruption is a tax on growth just as inequality is a tax on growth.
Money that could be spent on improving conditions overall winds up in the hands of a small wealthy oligarchy.
The only real difference is legalistic. Technically corruption involves some type of illegality, but
the end results are the same."
Notable quotes:
"... Deregulation, of course. A semantic trick so typical of the IMF. Openness is fair and to manage openness you may need a clear regulatory framework that provides rules and clarity with strong institutions that can ensure compliance. Pushing all the time for deregulation is ideological bias. ..."
"... I like the idea of economist studying the economic effects of corruption. One of the benefits, of course, is that it will bring more to light these rationalizations like the one Ignacio brings up. So if only we didnt have laws against shoplifting then the shoplifter would not have to hide what he was doing or be guilty of a crime ..."
"... Corruption is a tax on growth just as inequality is a tax on growth. Money that could be spent on improving conditions overall winds up in the hands of a small wealthy oligarchy. The only real difference is legalistic. Technically corruption involves some type of illegality, but the end results are the same. ..."
"... This may sound a bit strong, but if you do the math, corruption and relentless upward distribution are the same thing in terms of national accounting. Do the math and youll see. ..."
"... When talking about corruption, everybody focuses on illicit flows of payments, which is of course a primary factor, but I would say the greasing of hands is not the most damaging part, rather it is the associated dereliction of duty and shaping policy and decision making, and initiation, selection, or prioritization of projects not to serve the public benefit (or that of the organizations involved) but to arrange private advantages. ..."
"... the largest problem is not the driving up of the cost though thats bad enough, but the corruption of the very decision making which inevitably leads to not delivering what was needed or requested, but something counterproductive (and not rarely in a way that conveniently enables the next round of graft). ..."
"... In the days of the notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall they used to talk about honest corruption and dishonest corruption. The idea is that honest corruption got the thing built or done, even if the cost was incredibly bloated. Tammany Hall made a point of distributing the loot up and down the line. The big guys would get millions, but every worker on the job got bonus pay, fake overtime and spare parts . ..."
The "C word": A Hidden Tax on Growth, by Vitor Gaspar and Sean Hagan: In recent years, citizens'
concerns about allegations of corruption in the public sector have become more visible and widespread.
From São Paulo to Johannesburg, citizens have taken to the streets against graft. In countries
like Chile, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Malaysia and Ukraine, they are sending a clear and loud message
to their leaders: Address corruption!
Policymakers are paying attention too. Discussing the "C word" has long been a sensitive topic
at inter-governmental organizations like the International Monetary Fund. But earlier this month
at its Annual Meetings in Lima, Peru, the IMF hosted a refreshingly
frank
discussion on the subject. The panel session provided a stimulating debate on definitions
of corruption, its direct and indirect consequences, and strategies for addressing it, including
the role that individuals and institutions such as the IMF can play. This blog gives a flavor
of the discussion. ...
Ignacio said...
Here goes the IMF:
"Openness of the economy through deregulation and liberalization will also help since
overly-regulated economies create strong incentives to maintain corrupt practices."
Deregulation, of course. A semantic trick so typical of the IMF. Openness is fair and to
manage openness you may need a clear regulatory framework that provides rules and clarity with
strong institutions that can ensure compliance. Pushing all the time for deregulation is ideological
bias.
djb -> anne...
I like the idea of economist studying the economic effects of corruption. One of the benefits,
of course, is that it will bring more to light these rationalizations like the one Ignacio brings
up. So if only we didn't have laws against shoplifting then the shoplifter would not have to hide
what he was doing or be guilty of a crime
Corruption is a tax on growth just as inequality is a tax on growth. Money that could be
spent on improving conditions overall winds up in the hands of a small wealthy oligarchy. The
only real difference is legalistic. Technically corruption involves some type of illegality, but
the end results are the same.
This may sound a bit strong, but if you do the math, corruption and relentless upward distribution
are the same thing in terms of national accounting. Do the math and you'll see.
cm -> kaleberg...
When talking about corruption, everybody focuses on illicit flows of payments, which is
of course a primary factor, but I would say the greasing of hands is not the most damaging part,
rather it is the associated dereliction of duty and shaping policy and decision making, and initiation,
selection, or prioritization of projects not to serve the public benefit (or that of the organizations
involved) but to arrange private advantages.
If it were only about the money, it would be more like being slightly overcharged on the bill,
but still getting what you ordered or needed.
cm -> cm...
Of course not to forget the lining of pockets. But my main point still stands - the largest
problem is not the driving up of the cost though that's bad enough, but the corruption of the
very decision making which inevitably leads to not delivering what was needed or requested, but
something counterproductive (and not rarely in a way that "conveniently" enables the next round
of graft).
kaleberg -> cm...
In the days of the notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall they used to talk about honest corruption
and dishonest corruption. The idea is that honest corruption got the thing built or done, even
if the cost was incredibly bloated. Tammany Hall made a point of distributing the loot up and
down the line. The big guys would get millions, but every worker on the job got bonus pay, fake
overtime and "spare parts".
likbez said...
IMF neoliberal perspective on governance failed to highlight the major source of corruption
-- neoliberalism as a social system.
Over recent years, IMF and World Bank have been promoting an artificially constructed discourse
on corruption that separates it from its historic narrative -- the neoliberal political system
under which it now flourish. They use pretty elaborate smoke screen designed to hide the key issues
under the set of fuzzy terms such as "transparency", "accountability", "governance", "anticorruption
initiatives". Ignoring the socio-political role of corruption as the key mechanism of the neoliberal
debt enslavement of peripheral nations (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - Wikipedia )
Privatization might well be the most widespread type of corruption which occurs when an office-holder
or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity to sell government property for pennies
on the dollar to local oligarchs of international companies. With delayed payment via the "revolving
door" mechanism.
If we assume that corruption is 'illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest"
then neoliberalism is the most corrupt social system imaginable.
But in neoliberal ideology only the state is responsible for corruption. The private sector under
neoliberalism is immune of any responsibility. In reality it is completely opposite and state
represents a barrier to private companies especially international sharks to get unfair advantage.
And they can use the USA embassy as a source of pressure instead of bribing government officials.
Neoliberals argues without any proof that if the market is let to function through its own mechanisms,
and the role of state diminished to a minimum regulatory role, "good governance" could be realized
and corruption be diminished. As US subprime crisis has shown this is untrue and destroys the
stability of the economy.
Actually the term "governance" serves as the magical universal opener in neoliberal ideology.
It is ideologically grounded up the narrative of previous mismanagement of economy ("blame the
predecessor" trick).
This assumes the ideal economic sphere, in which players somehow get an equal opportunities
automatically without regulatory role of the state and in case of peripheral nations without being
strong armed by more powerful states. Under neoliberalism ethical responsibilities on players
are reduced to the loyalty to contract.
Moreover antisocial behavior under liberalism is explicitly promoted (" greed is good") and
the West serves as a "treasure vault" for stolen money and provides "safe heaven" for corrupt
officials that face prosecution. At least this is true for Russian oligarchs when each crook automatically
became "fighter for freedom" after landing in London airport and stolen money are indirectly appropriated
by British state and never returned to Russia.
The USA is very similar. It likes to condemn corruption but seldom returns that money stolen
-- for example it never returned to Ukraine money stolen by Ukrainian Prime minister under President
Kuchma Pavlo Lazarenko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlo_Lazarenko)
.
gunste said...
Applied Republican ideology is operating and legislating in favor of money donors and their
businesses. It is America's legalized corruption and bribery.
The current American administration will go down in history as one of the most weak and
unprofessional with no affinity for etiquette and good manners.
Notable quotes:
"... Where Mr. Obama failed, other Western and world leaders expressed their condolences-British Prime-Minister David Cameron, Polish President Andzej Duda, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping among them. ..."
"... The Kremlin isn't worrying why Barack Obama didn't send condolences, reported Interfax. "Probably, this should not be explained by the Kremlin," said Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary to the Russian President, answering why there was no official telegram from Mr. Obama. Mr. Peskov said there were "a lot" of messages from other world leaders. ..."
"... Russia's national news service Information Agency outed Mr. Obama as "the only world leader that did not express his condolences [to Russia] on the air catastrophe A-321." ..."
"... "This is personal," wrote Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding "the current American administration will go down in history as one of the most weak and unprofessional with no affinity for etiquette and good manners." ..."
On November 2, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in New York, President Barack Obama poked
fun of the Republicans, joking that if they cannot handle CNBC moderators how could they possibly
handle Russia's Vladimir Putin?
"Every one of these candidates says, 'Obama's weak, Putin's kicking sand in his face. When I talk
to Putin, he's gonna straighten out.' …and then it turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC
moderators!" Mr. Obama said.
"I mean, let me tell you: if you can't handle those guys," he continued, laughing, "I don't think
the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you."
While Mr. Obama had his fun, he neglected to mention more serious matters-the Russian plane crash
over the Sinai peninsula on October 31 that took the lives of all 224 passengers on board.
Where Mr. Obama failed, other Western and world leaders expressed their condolences-British
Prime-Minister David Cameron, Polish President Andzej Duda, French President Francois Hollande,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping among them.
On his Twitter page, Mr. Cameron wrote: "PM expresses condolences to President Putin over Sinai
plane crash. Britain shares Russia's pain and grief."
Mr. Hollande wrote: "[A]fter the occurred tragedy [President] sends his condolences to President
Putin and expresses his solidarity with the Russian people.."
Even Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko took to Twitter with the following: "I express my
personal condolences to all the families of those perished in the catastrophe of the Russian
passenger plane over Egypt."
Not Mr. Obama.
The Kremlin isn't worrying why Barack Obama didn't send condolences, reported Interfax.
"Probably, this should not be explained by the Kremlin," said Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary
to the Russian President, answering why there was no official telegram from Mr. Obama. Mr. Peskov
said there were "a lot" of messages from other world leaders.
Secretary of State John Kerry expressed condolences on behalf of "all American people" to the
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov-that was all, said Putin's press secretary.
Russia's national news service Information Agency outed Mr. Obama as "the only world leader that
did not express his condolences [to Russia] on the air catastrophe A-321."
"This is personal," wrote Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding "the current
American administration will go down in history as one of the most weak and unprofessional with
no affinity for etiquette and good manners."
Mozilla made a bit of a splash this week with
the announcement of its updated "private mode" in Firefox, but it's worth spelling out exactly
why: Firefox's enhanced privacy mode blocks web trackers.
Users familiar with Chrome's "Incognito Mode" may assume that's what it does as well, but it doesn't.
It's no fault of Google or the Chromium Project if someone misunderstands the degree of protection.
The company is clear
in its FAQ: all Incognito Mode does is keep your browsing out of the browser's history.
'We think that when you launch private browsing you're telling us that you want more control over
the data you share on the web.'
Firefox's new "Private Mode" one-ups user protection here by automatically blocking web trackers.
Nick Nguyen, Vice President for Product at Mozilla, says in the video announcement, "We think that
when you launch private browsing you're telling us that you want more control over the data you share
on the web." That sounds right. In fact, most people probably think private modes provide more safety
than they do.
Firefox has been working to educate web users about the prevalence of trackers for a long time.
In 2012,
it introduced Collusion to help users visualize just how many spying eyes were in the background
of their browsing (a tool now
known by the milquetoast name 'Lightbeam') and how they follow you around.
Privacy nuts might be thinking, "Hey, isn't the new Private Mode basically doing what the
Ghostery add-on/extension does already? It
looks that way. Ghostery was not immediately available for comment on this story. This reporter started
using Ghostery in earnest in the last few weeks, and while it does bust the odd page, overall, it
makes the web much faster. As Mr. Nguyen says in the video, Firefox's new mode should do the roughly
the same.
The best way to update Firefox is within the 'About Firefox' dialogue. Open it and let it check
for updates (if it doesn't say version 42.0 or higher, the browser doesn't have it). On Macs, find
"About Firefox" under the "Firefox" tab in the menu bar. On a PC, find it in the hamburger menu in
the upper right.
Competition in the browser battles keeps improving the functionality of the web. When Chrome first
came along, Firefox had become incredibly bloated.
Notice of what's new in 'Private Mode' when opened in Firefox, after updating. (Screenshot: Firefox)
Then, Chrome popularized the notion of incognito browsing, back when the main privacy concern
was that our roommate would look at our browsing history to see how often we were visiting Harry
Potter fansites (shout out to stand-up comic, Ophira Eisenberg, for that one).
As the web itself has become bloated with spyware, incorporating tracker blocking directly into
the structure of the
world's second most popular browser is a strong incentive for web managers to be more judicious
about the stuff they load up in the background of websites.
Don't forget, though, that even with trackers blocked, determined sites can probably identify
visitors and they can definitely profile,
using browser fingerprinting. If you really want to hide, use
Tor. If you're mega paranoid, try
the Tails OS.
Why western MSM push so hard the version about the bomb ? Investigation just started and
there are multiple version including now known far there that were war games by NATO the same day in
the same area.
Notable quotes:
"... Egypt faces an economic disaster if tourism and business travel stops, and you don't think they will say it was just a simple accident -- move along now, nothing to see here ..."
"... The reality is the West ruined Libya, abandoned Tunis, and chickened out by backing Sisi in Egypt. Therefore, there are alot of armed Jihadis looking for Westerners to shoot. Its also about to get worse since now its Russia's turn to ruin things even more...... ..."
"... I am in no way a fan of Putin, but recently he explained his issue with the West pretty clearly. Most Russians subscribe to that. Russia does not see West as a threat, but as a trouble maker at large, causing havoc and destabilizing the world. Listen to him if you want to understand the other side ..."
Egypt faces an economic disaster if tourism and business travel stops, and you don't
think they will say it was just a simple accident -- "move along now, nothing to see here".
njglea, is a trusted commenter Seattle
Tension in the Middle East is rising and it is very frightening because it's a no-win
situation as it stands now. Everybody loses. I am reminded of a song from the 1960s that
addresses this situation perfectly and is a message that should go to every world leader and
hater. "One Tin Soldier". Please listen and read the lyrics and, if you agree, forward this
message to everyone you know. WE can live in a peaceful world if enough of us take small
actions to make it so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKx0tdlxMfY
della, cambridge, ma 52 minutes ago
I just flew back from Istanbul -- four layers of security -- superior to US.
Matthew Abbasi, Los Angeles 52 minutes ago
Why would any Westerner in his/her right mind go to Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya for a
vacation? These are unstable nations with ongoing civil wars so Western nations really need to
ban tourist for a bit for until things calm down. Its not enough to say that these nations
need the tourist money. The risk should not be discounted just because of that. The
reality is the West ruined Libya, abandoned Tunis, and chickened out by backing Sisi in Egypt.
Therefore, there are alot of armed Jihadis looking for Westerners to shoot. Its also about to
get worse since now its Russia's turn to ruin things even more......
Abbas -> Matthew Abbasi, San Francisco, CA 43 minutes ago
Egypt does not have a civil war. Statistically, it is far safer to visit than many places
in the U.S.
Rohit, New York
Quoting another poster
"I am in no way a fan of Putin, but recently he explained his issue with the West
pretty clearly. Most Russians subscribe to that. Russia does not see West as a threat, but as
a trouble maker at large, causing havoc and destabilizing the world. Listen to him if you want
to understand the other side"
And what is fascinating is that every word spoken by Putin could just as easily have been
said by Noam Chomsky or even by President Eisenhower.
PS, Vancouver, Canada
I have little faith in airport security checks in the middle east. Was in Morocco this
summer - put my bags on the conveyor belt. Fine - but there was nary a soul manning the
monitors. Yes, it was screened (given that it passed through an x-ray machine, but there were
no human eyes checking it) . . . also, no one bothered to take my water bottle (which I had
inadvertently carried with me.
Federal law enforcement began planning to use license plate readers in 2009 to track cars that
visited gun shows against cars that crossed the border into Mexico, according
to notes from a
meeting between United States and Mexican law enforcement, released on Wikileaks. The notes
were taken by Marko Papic, then of Stratfor, a
company that describes itself as a publisher of geopolitical intelligence.
License plate readers are becoming a standard tool for local and national law enforcement
across the country. In 2013, the ACLU showed that
state and local law enforcement were widely
documenting drivers' movements.
Ars Technica looked at license plate data collected in Oakland. In January, the
ACLU described documents
attained from the Drug Enforcement Agency under the Freedom of Information Act that showed
that agency has been working closely with state and local law enforcement. Many of the findings
in these latter documents corroborate some of the insights provided by the 2009 meeting notes on
Wikileaks.
Wikileaks began publishing these emails in February 2012, as the "Global
Intelligence Files," as the Observer
previously reported. The documents have to be read with some caution. These were reportedly
attained by hackers in December 2011. A Stratfor spokesperson declined to comment on the leaked
emails, referring the Observer instead to
its 2012 statement, which says, "Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include
inaccuracies; some may be authentic. We will not validate either."
While it's hard to imagine that such a giant trove could be completely fabricated, there is
also no way to know whether or not some of it was tampered with. That said, details about federal
license plate reader programs largely square with subsequent findings about the surveillance
systems.
The meeting appears to have been primarily concerned with arms control, but related matters,
such as illegal drug traffic and the Zetas, come up as well. The focus of the meeting appears to
be information sharing among the various authorities, from both countries. Among other
initiatives, the notes describe the origins of a sophisticated national system of automobile
surveillance.
Here are some findings on law enforcement technology, with an emphasis on tracking
automobiles:
The program wasn't fully live in 2009. The notes read, "Mr. 147 asked
about the License Plate Reader program and Mr. 983 from DEA responded that they were still in
the testing phase but that once completed the database would be available for use
by everyone." However,
an email found by the ACLU from 2010 said that the DEA was sharing information with local
law enforcement as of May 2009. (People at the meeting are largely referred to by numbers
throughout the notes)
Gun shows. The officials in the meeting suspect that a lot of guns that
reach Mexico come from American gun shows. The Ambassador from Mexico is cited as believing
that shows were the main source of firearms coming into his country. The ATF then says that
investigating gun shows is "touchy."
Cross-referencing. Despite the sensitivity, the ATF hoped to be able to
identify vehicles that visited gun shows and then crossed the border. The notes read, "[Mr.
192] noted that they would do the check once they came into Mexico. Mr. 009 stated part of the
new ways that are being looked at is incorporating that type of information into license plate
readers for local law enforcement. He added that DEA is going to provide more and more license
plate readers especially southbound." This last point squares with ACLU's finding, which found
a 2010 document that said the DEA had 41 readers set up in southern border states.
ATF and the NRA. Apparently law enforcement checks in with the gun rights
advocates. Mr. 123 is identified as an ATF employee in the hacked email. In a conversation
about the federal government's gun tracking system, eTrace, the notes attribute to him the
following, "He added that they are in constant communication with Mr. Templeton who has
the Cross Roads of the West Gun Show as well as NRA attorneys and that there had been no
complaints on how things were moving." Bob Templeton is shown as the President of the National
Association of Arms Shows
on this op-ed and runs the gun show mentioned, according to its site.
Other data. The notes also indicate that the ATF was working on ways to
identify people who bought more guns at gun shows than their income should allow. It also
indicated that the United States' gun tracking system was being translated into Spanish, so
that Mexican authorities could check guns against American records.
The notes themselves are not dated, but the email containing them is dated September 4, 2009.
It provides no names, but it cites people from the Mexican Embassy, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco
and Firerearms, DEA, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and others. The only person named
is Marko Papic, who identifies himself
in this hacked
email. Stephen Meiners circulated
Mr. Papic's notes from the summit's morning and afternoon session in one email.
"... This created an open communication network, meaning that with the use of any wifi-enabled device, anyone could send anything (text messages, voice calls, photos and files) anonymously for those listening to hear. ..."
"... "If people are spying on us, it stands to reason that they have ..."
"... To no surprise, there was a ton of trolling. ..."
When it was revealed in 2013 that the NSA and its UK equivalent, GCHQ, routinely spied on the
German government, artists Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter came up with a plan.
They installed a series of antennas on the roof of the Swiss Embassy in Berlin and another giant
antenna on the roof of the Academy of Arts, which is located exactly between the listening posts
of the NSA and GCHQ. This created an open communication network, meaning that with the use of any wifi-enabled device, anyone could send anything (text messages, voice calls, photos and files) anonymously
for those listening to hear.
"If people are spying on us, it stands to reason that they have to listen to what we
are saying," Mr. Jud said in a TED Talk on the subject that was filmed at TED Global London in September
and uploaded onto Ted.com today.
This was perfectly legal, and they named the project "Can You Hear Me?"
To no surprise, there was a ton of trolling. One message read, "This is the NSA. In God we trust.
In all others we track!!!!!" Another said, "Agents, what twisted story of yourself will you tell
your grandchildren?" One particularly humorous message jokingly pleaded, "@NSA My neighbors are noisy.
Please send a drone strike."
Watch the full talk here for more trolling messages and details about the project:
Is this a replay on MH17? Looks like like was the case on 9/11 and MH17 there were war games
the same day in the same air space.
Notable quotes:
"... Conspicuously absent from MSM is the fact that Israel, USA, Poland, Greece were having war game air dogfights 40 miles from where the plane was shot down. ..."
"... I caught that too, and it has gotten no play at all in western media. I heard it mentioned in Russian media. These are regular air superiority exercises. Air to Air combat using air superiority fighters and air to air missiles. Should this be investigated? Of course. It has already done this once before in 1980 during air to air exercises of NATO. ..."
"... On 23 January 2013 Italys top criminal court ruled that there was abundantly clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile ..."
"... Putin has proven in Ukraine that he cannot be goaded into action. This is an attempt to get Russian popular opinion ,to force his hand. ..."
"... The contradictions are getting so massive, even sheeple might begin to notice. ..."
"... Force his hand to do what? I dont exactly understand what youre suggesting. I guarantee you this airliner downing has only made Russians dislike ISIS more...it hasnt made them suddenly think oh we should not mess around there anymore. ..."
"... Something done in rage, rather than his cool, calculating lawyerly approach. Anything that can be portrayed as terrible to the RoW to disuade them from crossing into his camp. Its a Hail Mary pass IMO, but it shows how desperate they are getting. ..."
"... I have not confirmed myself but reports are that Israeli firms supplied the security for that airport. Some reports say the Saudis also have some component of the security or operations. ..."
"... Nope. Not while sportsball is on the teebee they wont. The trough of stupidity is a sweet, intoxicating slurry of false promises, self promotion and uplifting exceptionalism. ..."
"... I just know you voiced equal measures of concern over the 2+ million killed and the countless more driven out, crippled or orphaned by USSA warmongering in the region, not to mention all the noise Im sure you raised about israel killing thousands of civilians in Palestine too? ..."
"... Your lazy sarcasm aside - Russian media comports strangely with independent media, and it is no less trustworthy than the absolute nonsense in the pages of the NYT, Wa Post and other, indeed, Zionist {and Establishment media}. ..."
"... NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine ..."
"... The notion that American media is more trustworthy is absolutely absurd. One simply has to read from as broad an array as possible and assume that everyone has an agenda, everyone is trying to convince you of a *version*. Only its the US and its allies that have gone around the world bombing and killing based on pretext and lies, not the Russians. ..."
"... in Kiev itself it is now public information that most sniper shoots were fired from the Ukraine Hotel that was headquarters to Right Sector Fascists. ..."
"... Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Because this fraud guy in his small house in England has been exposed again and again as a liar and fraud, anyone using him as a source is making themsleves highly suspect. As if a fake source, as long as it says what you one wants, is good enough . ..."
"... ISIS(ISIL) Completely Fabricated Enemy by US: Former CIA Contractor! Socio-Economics History Blog ..."
"... The Russians are asking British Intel after making the statement that if they have some supporting intel they would like to hear it. They refuse to share any intel; For a disaster and possibly a terrorist attack investigation? Hmmmm Wonder why? What are they hiding from? Why would you not want to help an investigation? Why do they want to promote an unproven story? To deflect the blame? Somebody has something to hide. ..."
"... The US/UK has amazingly good information on what IS is doing, n est ce pas? And fantastic surveillance data, right out of the chute, in stark contrast to the seeming complete inattention paid to Malaysian jetliners. ..."
"... If the British and American governments are saying it was a bomb, then you can be sure it was NOT a bomb. I am leaning toward believing that it was an act taken by the US and Israel during their war games from a location nearby the downing. Too much of a coincidence. ..."
"... Lets harken back to MH-17. The instant and coordinated lies across all western media within hours, suggests a link between all Media Corporations and their Editorial Staffs. A German journalist wrote a book about his work for the CIA as a German journalist. He was under the impression that CIA was active across all media corporations and their editorial staff. I think MH-17 proved the fact that CIA does control much of what we read and hear. Otherwise, who can explain the exact same stories in all western media appearing before any of them even had a chance to read each others work! Odds of replication without prior knowledge are zero! ..."
"... Whether or not it was a bomb matters a lot less than who knew when and how they knew it. Like, for instance, if they knew it was a bomb before it blew up. The details and pattern of the media operation are pretty interesting, but more matters of art than fact. ..."
"... Is it not the case that a Russian passenger plane was downed after the Russian air force bombed ISIS for a month, while no US planes were terrorized after the US air force bombed ISIS for a year. ..."
Conspicuously absent from MSM is the fact that Israel, USA, Poland, Greece were having
war game air dogfights 40 miles from where the plane was shot down.
I caught that too, and it has gotten no play at all in western media. I heard it mentioned
in Russian media. These are regular air superiority exercises. Air to Air combat using air superiority
fighters and air to air missiles. Should this be investigated? Of course. It has already done
this once before in 1980 during air to air exercises of NATO.
Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870
the cause of the crash to a missile fired from a
French
Navy aircraft, despite contrary evidence presented in Frank Taylor's 1994 report. On 23
January 2013 Italy's top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that
the flight was brought down by a missile.[1]
To date, this remains the deadliest aviation incident involving a DC-9-10/15 series."
cougar_w
When everything is a false flag operation then nothing is.
ISIS is perfectly capable to pulling this off, and seems to enjoy the infamy, and they couldn't
wait to claim credit. Looks good to me, no need to go any further than that.
... ... ...
Winston Churchill
The gambit is pretty obvious.
Putin has proven in Ukraine that he cannot be goaded into action. This is an attempt to
get Russian popular opinion ,to force his hand.
They keep on telling us he's a dictator, so why would that affect him ?
The contradictions are getting so massive, even sheeple might begin to notice.
Glasnost -> Winston Churchill
Force his hand to do what? I don't exactly understand what you're suggesting. I guarantee
you this airliner downing has only made Russians dislike ISIS more...it hasn't made them suddenly
think oh we should not mess around there anymore.
Winston Churchill -> Glasnost
Something done in rage, rather than his cool, calculating lawyerly approach. Anything that
can be portrayed as terrible to the RoW to disuade them from crossing into his camp. Its a Hail
Mary pass IMO, but it shows how desperate they are getting.
Blankone
I have not confirmed myself but reports are that Israeli firms supplied the security for
that airport. Some reports say the Saudi's also have some component of the security or operations.
Maybe they should focus on that as well.
trulz4lulz
Now the sympathisers are trying to "pass the buck!"... an american tradition. much akin to
"indian giving" but better.
dear american gubmit: Who created ISIS?
american gubmit: uhhh uhhhh, they did it!!! yeah! it was them all along, ya see?!
Yttrium Gold Nitrogen
France 2 reports that a sound of an explosion was recorded by the blackboxes, according to
official who had access to the recordings.
trulz4lulz -> Winston Churchill
The contradictions are getting so massive, even sheeple might begin to notice.
Nope. Not while sportsball is on the teebee they wont. The trough of stupidity is a sweet,
intoxicating slurry of false promises, self promotion and uplifting exceptionalism. The world
is an aweful place when there isnt anyone there to tell you how exceptional you are. Murikistanians
will NOT look away from the trough. Its just too delicious.
El Vaquero -> trulz4lulz
Having them distracted with bread and circuses is a double edged sword.
Winston Churchill -> El Vaquero
Yep, distraction beats jingo.
It was much easier to whip up a blood frenzy before kim Kardasians ass blocked out the horizon.
trulz4lulz -> Winston Churchill
I agree, but it also helps promote patriotism and consumerism, which also is good for the economy
because it focuses on the packadged food sector which is where a lot of jobs data comes from.
. The model for the distraction workings is fascinating to me.
forputin
So which sources are credible? Only those russian? Yes, I also thought so. Only those sources
that are controlled by Putin can be trusted. All other are controled by Anglo Zion Banking NWO
Lizzard People Elite. Thank God Putin protects us from that information!
farflungstar -> forputin
Voactiv uses Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, so yeah it's probably bullshit. Reuters @
Buiness Insider too, more bullshit, Hymie.
I just know you voiced equal measures of concern over the 2+ million killed and the countless
more driven out, crippled or orphaned by USSA warmongering in the region, not to mention all the
noise I'm sure you raised about israel killing thousands of civilians in Palestine too?
Fuckin dickmouth
Raymond_K._Hessel
the Syrian Observatory is absolutely not credible - its one guy being used as a quote factory.
Your lazy sarcasm aside - Russian media comports strangely with independent media, and
it is no less trustworthy than the absolute nonsense in the pages of the NYT, Wa Post and other,
indeed, Zionist {and 'Establishment' media}.
The notion that American media is more trustworthy is absolutely absurd. One simply has
to read from as broad an array as possible and assume that everyone has an agenda, everyone is
trying to convince you of a *version*. Only its the US and its allies that have gone around the
world bombing and killing based on pretext and lies, not the Russians.
So the false equivalency ploy makes sense - until you give it a moment's thought.
Cookie?
Jack Burton
30,000 trained, paid and organized fascists appeared on the Madian in the matter of a couple
days, armed and outfitted in body armor. But Euro Maidan is not a Coup according to NYT. Every
peaceful protest gets a 30,000 man army arrive to help it along. Also, in Kiev itself it is
now public information that most sniper shoots were fired from the Ukraine Hotel that was headquarters
to Right Sector Fascists.
Jack Burton
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Because this fraud guy in his small house in England
has been exposed again and again as a liar and fraud, anyone using him as a source is making themsleves
highly suspect. As if a fake source, as long as it says what you one wants, is good enough".
Western Media refuses to expose this guy for what he is. He hides up in his house, claiming people
are out to kill him, and puts out posts about war crimes. He hasn't been to Syria for over a decade,
and admits No First Hand Knowledge of his Syrian sources, he gets his information second hand
from so called friends of friends in Syria. RT caught up to him and made a fool out of him on
camera.
Yet he is the West's Top Source on Syrian war crimes.
Here is an excellent source of what happening there -- down to the minute.
BTW. This nugget jumps out.
----
Big impact of Russia's suspension of Egypt flights
Roland Oliphant, our correspondent in Moscow, writes:
Quote
It's not just the Egyptian economy that will hurt after this. Russia's association
of tour agencies says today's decision cuts off their biggest market and sets them on a "direct
path to bankruptcy."
"Egypt is the single biggest selling destination on the Russian tourism market, and right now
it is peak season. It's the main destination for all the large tour operators," said Irina Tyurina,
a spokeswoman for the Russian Union of Tour Operators.
"There's 50,000 Russians there now, and those who have to come home early or have bought tickets
but now can't travel, should get their money back from the tour operators. It's a direct path
to bankruptcy for many firms."
Heavily invested in the tourist industry, are we? America is about to trigger a world warand
you people are screeming aout lost vacation revenue? You are either one of the dumbest humans
on earth that has learned to word good, or you are just plan software. Im guessing software. Nothiing
but a program can be so blatantly stupid.
alphahammer
Dumb?
BBBWWWAAAAHHHAAAA!!!!!
I cut and paste the direct words from Roland Oliphant, our correspondent in Moscow, writes:
If you had a lick of mental capacity, you would understand the comment is about RUSSIAN investment
in tourism because Egypt is Russias #1 spot for vacationing Russians.
ITS THE RUSSIANS SCREAMING ABOUT LOST TOURIST REVENUE EINSTEIN...
Dumb? Yes, look it up in the dictionary and there will be your picture...
swmnguy
Oliphant is doing a good job in his role, helping to bait the hook the Zbigniew Brzezinski
acolytes are jiggling out there. Oliphant's editorial comments about the Russian people's unwillingness
to take casualties suggests he's gotten his Garanimals mixed up. Russians aren't Americans.
farflungstar
Because ISIS, Manischewitz Land, the US and UK "intelligence" agencies said they did it, does
this mean it's true? Who would reasonably believe these serial liars at this point in time? Credibility
is shot.
I'd like to hear what the Russians have to say after a thorough investigation.
SSRI Junkie
this works out well for obola. he hates egypt for tossing out his muslim brotherhood lackeys
and gets putin to cancel their flights in and out of egypt. his bung brothers in saudi arabia
keep pumping oil even if it's unprofitable to stomp out our domestic oil production as well as
russia's oil production. obola is a plague of unprecendented proportion even if the cdc doesn't
recognize it
cowdiddly
Britain and the Us both are trying to say that this was a bomb planted by ISIS. The Russians
are saying they will wait for the data.
The Russians are asking British Intel after making the statement that if they have some
supporting intel they would like to hear it. They refuse to share any intel; For a disaster and
possibly a terrorist attack investigation? Hmmmm Wonder why? What are they hiding from? Why would
you not want to help an investigation? Why do they want to promote an unproven story? To deflect
the blame? Somebody has something to hide.
Somebody is involved here that is going to reveal a nasty truth and I would not want to be
them cause right now the bear is just smiling at you and he is all ears.
THE DORK OF CORK
The Tunisia beech job was very effective.
It inflated the Spanish and Italian economies over the summer.
It seems like part of the banks armoury.
The Dogs of Moar
An update of the Tourney between Langley and Moscow this first week of November.
As you know, on Wednesday the Big Big Three, Barack Obama, President of the US, David Cameron,
Prime Minister of the UK, and Doofus al-Evil, the US appointed Emir of ISIL, tried to co opt the
investigation of the crash of the Russian plane in Sinai.
"I don't think we know yet" what caused the crash, Obama said ... But it is certainly possible
that there was a bomb on board."
British Prime Minister David Cameron says it's "more likely than not."
ISIS released a message on November 4 with claims that the group was responsible for the Russian
plane crash in Sinai, and said its method will be revealed soon.
ISIS first claimed credit for the downing of the Russian passenger jet an hour after the plane
went down. Six days later they're telling the world that "their method will be revealed soon."
WHAT THEY ARE REALLY SAYING IS THAT THEIR METHOD WILL BE REVEALED AS SOON AS THE CIA TELLS
THEM WHAT METHOD THE CIA USED AND THAT ISIS SHOULD CLAIM THE SAME.
THE CIA'S FEAR IS THAT THE INVESTIGATORS WILL UNCOVER A SOPHISTICATED EXPLOSIVE THAT THE RETARDNIKS
IN ISIS COULD ONLY HAVE GOTTEN FROM LANGLEY OR MI6.
But Russian and Egyptian authorities pushed back Thursday on suggestions that a bomb brought
down Metrojet Flight 9268 over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, saying there's no evidence yet to support
that theory.
Today the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said it deems it necessary to stop all Russian
flights to Egypt until the causes of the A321 plane crash are established. Russian experts
are taking wipe-samples from the plane fragments and passengers' luggage to trace possible
explosives.
If this investigation gets troublesome, there will be a fight in Langley between those
who wanted the plane to go down in the drink and those who wanted it down in the desert for
the propaganda value.
Atticus Finch
" RETARDNIKS IN ISIS COULD ONLY HAVE GOTTEN FROM LANGLEY OR MI6."...
You forgot Mossad.
trulz4lulz
If this investigation gets troublesome, there will be a fight in Langley between those who
wanted the plane to go down in the drink and those who wanted it down in the desert for the propaganda
value.
that sums it up right there. arguing over which aspect of treason to commit and cover up. this
is whats wrong. exactly.
swmnguy
The US/UK intelligence guys screwed up the timeline this past week, putting out new rules for
their people and announcing they had intel proving IS did it before cluing in the Russians.
It was a surprisingly blatant mistake. Let's see, whom do we know in a position of power in
Russia who would be intimately familiar with the way this game is played? Who would know immediately
exactly what this timeline error signifies?
The US/UK has amazingly good information on what IS is doing, n' est ce pas? And fantastic
surveillance data, right out of the chute, in stark contrast to the seeming complete inattention
paid to Malaysian jetliners.
Telling.
The Dogs of Moar
On October 27, 1964 -- here's what Ronald Reagan said
"If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced
with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars.
Did he realize how prescient he was, in thus describing the United States of America?
Grandad Grumps
If the British and American governments are saying it was a bomb, then you can be sure
it was NOT a bomb. I am leaning toward believing that it was an act taken by the US and Israel
during their war games from a location nearby the downing. Too much of a coincidence.
The video was not clear enough for me to determine if a missile was involved or the altitude a
missile might have originated from.
Jack Burton -> Grandad Grumps
That's a valid thought. We should be asking "why the USA and UK are in such a hurry to claim
bomb". It was a Russian plane, and the US and UK have no interest in this, unless they do have
a hidden interest in this.
Lets harken back to MH-17. The instant and coordinated lies across all western media within
hours, suggests a link between all Media Corporations and their Editorial Staffs. A German journalist
wrote a book about his work for the CIA as a German journalist. He was under the impression that
CIA was active across all media corporations and their editorial staff. I think MH-17 proved the
fact that CIA does control much of what we read and hear. Otherwise, who can explain the exact
same stories in all western media appearing before any of them even had a chance to read each
others work! Odds of replication without prior knowledge are zero!
swmnguy -> Jack Burton
Whether or not it was a bomb matters a lot less than who knew when and how they knew it.
Like, for instance, if they knew it was a bomb before it blew up. The details and pattern of the
media operation are pretty interesting, but more matters of art than fact.
The Mockies over at Charlie Hebdo seemed to find it funny that this plane crashed, not so funny
when a bunch of their people got killed at work back in January:
One of the
pictures shows a jihadist of the Islamic State (IS) militant group and plane's debris falling
around him. The caption says "IS: Russian Aviation intensifies its bombing campaign.
Mocking a plane crash where 224 people were killed, such a rich source of humor hahahaha so
fucking hysterical fucking faggot frogs
I saw this yesterday. Honestly, given what we call "Western Values" I fully expected the guardians
of culture in France to come up with something like this. When their people die, it's a world
wide event. When others die, it is a joke. Let's be clear, this story has made it deep into Russian
media. Need I tell you what the mood is now?
Is it not the case that a Russian
passenger plane was downed after the Russian air force bombed ISIS for a month, while no US planes
were terrorized after the US air force bombed ISIS for a year.
Just typing your correspondence on disconnected from internet computer and pointing it on
connected via USB printer is enough. Or better writing letter using regular pen.
The most secure and, at the same time, usable, method of creating, sharing and storing information
is to write it up on a manual typewriter and store it in a locked filing cabinet
If the CIA's Director John Brennan
can't keep his emails private, who can? Sadly, the fact that email and instant messaging are
far more convenient than communicating via papers in envelopes or by actually talking on the phone,
or (God forbid) face to face, these technologies are far more insecure. Could it be that the old
ways protected both secrecy and privacy far better than what we have now?
The men and women in the United States government assigned to protect our nation's most important
secrets have good reason to quote Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poet who proclaimed, "The typewriter is
holy." For that matter so are pens, pencils, carbon paper and ordinary paper. In the digital age
privacy as we once knew it, is dead, not just for ordinary citizens, but for government officials
including, apparently, the head of the CIA-not to mention our former Secretary of State. Neither
the NSA nor the U.S. military have been able to keep their secrets from being exposed by the likes
of WikiLeaks or Edward Snowden.
... ... ...
Given America's failures to protect our own secret information, one hopes and wishes that the
U.S. is as successful at stealing information from our potential foes as they are at stealing from
us.
In the private sector, hackers steal information from countless companies, ranging from Target
to Ashley Madison. The banks rarely let on how badly or how often they are victimized by cybercrime,
but rumor has it that it is significant. At least for now, the incentives for making and selling
effective cyber security systems are nowhere near as powerful as the incentives for building systems
that can steal secret or private information from individuals, as well as from corporations and governments.
In the digital age, privacy is gone.
Increasingly, organizations and individuals are rediscovering the virtues of paper. Non-digital
media are simply invulnerable to hacking. Stealing information from a typewriter is harder than stealing
it from a word processor, computer or server. A physical file with sheets of paper covered in words
written either by hand or by typewriter is a safer place to store confidential information than any
electronic data storage system yet devised.
The American Century's not what most Americans think it is. Historians need to set them
straight.
Notable quotes:
"... comforting fantasies go unchallenged and lodge themselves ever more deeply in the public consciousness. So the "Good War" remains ever good, with the "Greatest Generation" ever great. ..."
Today it's race, class, gender, and sexuality that claim pride of place. The effect, whether
intended or not, is that comforting fantasies go unchallenged and lodge themselves ever more
deeply in the public consciousness. So the "Good War" remains ever good, with the "Greatest
Generation" ever great.
"... The government is attempting to push into law the ability for law enforcement agencies to be able to look at 12 months of what they are calling "internet connection records", limited to the website domains that UK internet users visit. ..."
"... It does not cover specific pages: so police and spies will not be able to access that level of detail. That means they would know that a person has spent time on the Guardian website, but not what article they read. ..."
"... Information about the sites you visit can be very revealing. The data would show if a person has regularly visited Ashley Madison – the website that helped facilitate extramarital affairs. A visit to an Alcoholics Anonymous website or an abortion advice service could reveal far more than you would like the government or law enforcement to know. ..."
"... In using a VPN you are placing all your trust in the company that operates the VPN to both secure your data and repel third parties from intercepting your connection. A VPN based in the UK may also be required to keep a log of your browsing history in the same way an ISP would. ..."
"... One way to prevent an accurate profile of your browsing history from being built could be to visit random sites. Visiting nine random domains for every website you actually want to visit would increase the amount of data that your ISP has to store tenfold. But not everybody has the patience for that. ..."
Critics call it a revived snooper's charter, because the government wants police and spies to
be given access to the web browsing history of everyone in Britain.
However, Theresa May
says her measures would require internet companies to store data about customers that amount to "simply
the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill".
Who is right? And is there anything you can do to make your communications more secure?
What exactly is the government after?
The government is attempting to push into law the ability for law enforcement agencies to
be able to look at 12 months of what they are calling "internet connection records", limited to the
website domains that UK internet users visit.
This is the log of websites that you visit through your internet service provider (ISP), commonly
called internet browsing history, and is different from the history stored by your internet browser,
such as Microsoft's Edge, Apple's Safari or Google's Chrome.
It does not cover specific pages: so police and spies will not be able to access that level
of detail. That means they would know that a person has spent time on the Guardian website, but not
what article they read.
Clearing your browser history or using private or incognito browsing modes do nothing to affect
your browsing history stored by the ISP.
What will they be able to learn about my internet activity?
Information about the sites
you visit can be very revealing. The data would show if a person has regularly visited Ashley Madison
– the website that helped facilitate extramarital affairs. A visit to an Alcoholics Anonymous website
or an abortion advice service could reveal far more than you would like the government or law enforcement
to know.
The logged internet activity is also likely to reveal who a person banks with, the social
media they use, whether they have considered travelling (eg by visiting an airline homepage) and
a range of information that could in turn link to other sources of personal information.
Who will store my web browsing data?
The onus is on
ISPs – the companies that
users pay to provide access to the internet – to store the browsing history of its customers for
12 months. That includes fixed line broadband providers, such as BT, TalkTalk, Sky and Virgin, but
also mobile phone providers such as EE, O2, Three and Vodafone.
... ... ...
Don't ISPs already store this data?
They already store a limited amount of data on customer communications for a minimum of
one year and have done for some time, governed by the EU's data retention directive. That data can
be accessed under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa).
The new bill will enshrine the storage of browsing history and access to that data in law.
Can people hide their internet browsing history?
There are a few ways to prevent the collection
of your browsing history data, but each way is a compromise.
The most obvious way is the use of virtual private networks (VPNs). They channel your data from
your computer through your ISP to a third-party service before immersing on the internet. In doing
so they can obfuscate your data from your ISP and therefore the government's collection of browsing
history.
Companies routinely use VPNs to secure connections to services when off-site such as home workers.
Various companies such as HotspotShield
offer both free or paid-for VPN services to users.
Using the Tor browser, freely available
from the Tor project, is another way to hide what you're doing from your ISP and takes things
a stage further. It allows users to connect directly to a network of computers that route your traffic
by bouncing it around other computers connected to Tor before emerging on the open internet.
Your ISP will see that you are connected to Tor, but not what you are doing with it. But not everybody
has the technical skills to be comfortable using Tor.
Is there any downside to using a VPN?
In using a VPN you are placing all your trust
in the company that operates the VPN to both secure your data and repel third parties from intercepting
your connection. A VPN based in the UK may also be required to keep a log of your browsing history
in the same way an ISP would.
The speed of your internet connection is also limited by the VPN. Most free services are slow,
some paid-for services are faster.
Tor also risks users having their data intercepted, either at the point of exit from the Tor network
to the open internet or along the path. This is technically tricky, however. Because your internet
traffic is bounced between computers before reaching you, Tor can be particularly slow.
Can I protest-browse to show I'm unhappy with the new law?
One way to prevent an accurate
profile of your browsing history from being built could be to visit random sites. Visiting nine random
domains for every website you actually want to visit would increase the amount of data that your
ISP has to store tenfold. But not everybody has the patience for that.
At some point it will be very difficult to store that much data, should everyone begin doing so.
Yves here. Tax is a major way to create incentives. New York City increased taxes dramatically
on cigarettes, and has tough sanctions for trying to smuggle meaningful amounts of lower-taxed smokes
in. Rates of smoking did indeed fall as intended.
Thus the debate about whether corporations should pay more taxes is not "naive" as the plutocrats
would have you believe; in fact, they wouldn't be making such a big deal over it if it were. In the
1950s, a much larger percentage of total tax collections fell on corporations than individuals. And
the political message was clear: the capitalist classes needed to bear a fair share of the total
tax burden. Similarly, what has been the result of the preservation of a loophole that allows the
labor of hedge fund and private equity fund employees to be taxed at preferential capital gains rates?
A flood of "talent" into those professions at the expense of productive enterprise.
And the result of having lower taxes on companies has been a record-high corporate profit share
of GDP, with none of the supposed benefits of giving businesses a break. Contrary to their PR, large
companies have been net saving, which means liquidating, since the early 2000s. The trend has become
more obvious in recent years as companies have borrowed money to buy back their own stock.
In the past year, scandal after scandal has exposed companies using loopholes in the tax system
to avoid taxation. Now more than ever, it is becoming clear that citizens around the world are paying
a high price for the crisis in the global tax system, and the discussion about multinational corporations
and their tax tricks remains at the top of the agenda. There is also a growing awareness that the
world's poorest countries are even harder impacted than the richest countries. In effect, the poorest
countries are paying the price for a global tax system they did not create.
A large number of the scandals that emerged over the past year have strong links to the EU and its
Member States. Many eyes have therefore turned to the EU leaders, who claim that the problem is being
solved and the public need not worry. But what is really going on? What is the role of the EU in
the unjust global tax system, and are EU leaders really solving the problem?
This
report – the third
in a series of reports – scrutinises the role of the EU in the global tax crisis, analyses developments
and suggests concrete solutions. It is written by civil society organisations (CSOs) in 14 countries
across the EU. Experts in each CSO have examined their national governments' commitments and actions
in terms of combating tax dodging and ensuring transparency.
Each country is directly compared with its fellow EU Member States on four critical issues: the fairness
of their tax treaties with developing countries; their willingness to put an end to anonymous shell
companies and trusts; their support for increasing the transparency of economic activities and tax
payments of multinational corporations; and their attitude towards letting the poorest countries
have a seat at the table when global tax standards are negotiated. For the first time, this report
not only rates the performance of EU Member States, but also turns the spotlight on the European
Commission and Parliament too.
This report covers national policies and governments' positions
on existing and upcoming EU level laws, as well as global reform proposals.
Overall, the report finds that:
• Although tweaks have been made and some loopholes have been closed, the complex and dysfunctional
EU system of corporate tax rulings, treaties, letterbox companies and special corporate tax regimes
still remains in place. On some matters, such as the controversial patent boxes, the damaging
policies seem to be spreading in Europe. Defence mechanisms against 'harmful tax practices' that
have been introduced by governments, only seem partially effective and are not available to most
developing countries. They are also undermined by a strong political commitment to continue so-called
'tax competition' between governments trying to attract multinational corporations with lucrative
tax reduction opportunities – also known as the 'race to the bottom on corporate taxation'. The
result is an EU tax system that still allows a wide range of options for tax dodging by multinational
corporations.
• On the question of what multinational corporations pay in taxes and where they
do business, EU citizens, parliamentarians and journalists are still left in the dark, as are
developing countries. The political promises to introduce 'transparency' turned out to mean that
tax administrations in developed countries, through cumbersome and highly secretive processes,
will exchange information about multinational corporations that the public is not allowed to see.
On a more positive note, some light is now being shed on the question of who actually owns the
companies operating in our societies, as more and more countries introduce public or partially
public registers of beneficial owners. Unfortunately, this positive development is being somewhat
challenged by the emergence of new types of mechanisms to conceal ownership, such as new types
of trusts.
• Leaked information has become the key source of public information about tax dodging by multinational
corporations. But it comes at a high price for the people involved, as whistleblowers and even
a journalist who revealed tax dodging by multinational corporations are now being prosecuted and
could face years in prison. The stories of these 'Tax Justice Heroes' are a harsh illustration
of the wider social cost of the secretive and opaque corporate tax system that currently prevails.
• More than 100 developing countries still remain excluded from decision-making processes when
global tax standards and rules are being decided. In 2015, developing countries made the fight
for global tax democracy their key battle during the Financing for Development conference (FfD)
in Addis Ababa. But the EU took a hard line against this demand and played a key role in blocking
the proposal for a truly global tax body.
Not one single EU Member State challenged this approach and, as a result, decision-making on global
tax standards and rules remains within a closed 'club of rich countries'.
A direct comparison of
the 15 EU countries covered in this report finds that:
France, once a leader in the demand for public access to information about what multinational
corporations pay in tax, is no longer pushing the demand for corporate transparency. Contrary
to the promises of creating 'transparency', a growing number of EU countries are now proposing
strict confidentiality to conceal what multinational corporations pay in taxes.
Denmark and Slovenia are playing a leading role when it comes to transparency around the true owners
of companies. They have not only announced that they are introducing public registers of company
ownership, but have also decided to restrict, or in the case of Slovenia, avoided the temptation
of introducing, opaque structures such as trusts, which can offer alternative options for hiding
ownership. However, a number of EU countries, including in particular Luxembourg and Germany,
still offer a diverse menu of options for concealing ownership and laundering money.
Among the
15 countries covered in this report, Spain remains by far the most aggressive tax treaty negotiator,
and has managed to lower developing country tax rates by an average 5.4 percentage points through
its tax treaties with developing countries.
The UK and France played the leading role in blocking developing countries' demand for a seat at
the table when global tax standards and rules are being decided.
To read a summary of the report,
please click here.
Class Actions vs. Individual Prosecutions
Jed S. Rakoff NOVEMBER 19, 2015 NYRB
Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall, and Future
by John C. Coffee Jr.
Harvard University Press, 307 pp., $45.00
"... Lehman was engaging in blatant misreporting, treating these "repos" (in which a bank still shows them on its balance sheet as sold with the obligation to repurchase) as sales ..."
"... "It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations…." ..."
"... Although I hope the bank's newly appointed CEO is able to implement measures to rectify these problems, if DB "goes Lehman", I suspect it will occur much as Lehman did: quite suddenly. ..."
"... The 5% "fee" referred to in the fourth paragraph of the FT excerpt above is not the interest rate charged on the loan but instead is the over-collateralization amount provided by Lehman in exchange for a short-term cash loan. A normal repo loan is over-collateralized at perhaps 2%. Lehman's and its outside auditors Ernst Young's 'genius' was in discovering some language in 2001 or so in the then recently amended FAS 157 accounting guidance (all such guidance has been revised and renumbered in the meantime) which suggested indirectly that if the rate of over-collateralization was bumped up enough, you could pretend you sold the collateral instead of pledging it as collateral. So instead of pledging the normal 102% of the loan amount in collateral, Lehman asked lenders to please take more than that: 105%, hence "Repo 105." ..."
"... Most of Lehman's lenders wouldn't touch the scam because it was so obvious, but a few non-U.S. banks were happy to oblige Lehman. One was Deutsche Bank, to the tune of many billions of dollars over the years. Not that that had anything to do with ex-Deutsche General Counsel for the Americas Rob Khuzami's decision, once he became Obama's Enforcement Head at the SEC beginning in 2009, to give Lehman, EY, Deutsche and the other lenders a pass on all that. ..."
"... In no way did the drafters of the accounting guidance ever say, here's a way to scam the market, have at it. But then again those drafters are a committee of CPAs from all the big firms and elsewhere, including several from EY. So who knows how deliberate the set up was. ..."
"... Deutsche Bank has hugely profited from the end of the Deutschland AG at which head it once was. Thanks to chancellour Schroeder and his finance minister Eichle (the successor after Lafontaine was kicked who went on to found the left party) Deutsche and the other big German banks got to sell their industry portfolios without paying a penny of tax. It is common knowledge among industry watchers that this money ended up as bonuses for the "masters of the universe" at the Anglo-Saxon part of the bank which basically took over the whole bank. First invisibly and then all to visible when Jain became CEO. German industry is now owned by Blackrock and the like. Homi soit qui mal y pense ..."
"... Geithner's amorality and dereliction of duty has been apparent since his testimony in Starr v USA. Somehow these big names are protected by the supine media. ..."
"... Couldn't the NY State Superintendent of Financial Services pull Deutsche's U.S. Banking License? I thought this is what Ben Lawsky was intimating in this (nearly) one year old interview on Bloomberg, in which he (hints at?) the pulling of Deutsche's license, even though he was not at the time talking about Repo 105 ..."
Lehman was engaging in blatant misreporting, treating these "repos" (in which a bank still
shows them on its balance sheet as sold with the obligation to repurchase) as sales
Thank you for writing this bit. All the explanations I've read of Repo 105 seemed to be missing
the step where liabilities were actually reduced – because what's the difference between an asset
and an obligation/contract to buy said asset in X hours time?
So I'm glad a more financially astute mind than mind wrote down what I'd suspected, that real
liabilities weren't actually reduced by Repo 105 and it's just window dressing to fool the regulators.
I'd hazard that it actually makes the situation worse, because it's pretty expensive window dressing
and that's real cash that has to head out the door once a quarter.
tawal
Turning all the brokerages into bank holding companies, where now they all have a calendar
year end and can't temporarily hide their trash on each other's books, but can all hide it on
the Fed's unaudited balance sheet.
Why isn't Deutsche Bank doing this too, and are UBS, Barclays and HSBC the next to fail?
fresno dan
"It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict
in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in
accounting fraud and Sarbox violations…."
Upon finding this out, tire squeal, sirens wail, lights flash, and grim faced men rush to take
into custody little Timmy Geithner and serve warrants a the New York FED….
LOL – of course not. Most government officials, of BOTH parties, would say Timmy Geithner and
his ilk performed fantastically…. After all, he worked hard to prop it up…. If you remove the corruption, the double and self dealing,
price fixing, fraud, ad infinitum, and how could the system continue as constituted? And the people
at the top of the system thinks it works very well indeed.
Chauncey Gardiner
This issue is unsurprising to me. Many signs over the past couple years of deeply troubling
matters at this TBTF: CEO resignations, NY Fed criticisms of systems and financial reporting (as
Yves pointed out), participation in market manipulations, billions in writedowns, suicide death
of bank's regulatory lawyer, massive derivatives exposures, central bank calls for increased capital,
etc.
Although I hope the bank's newly appointed CEO is able to implement measures to rectify these
problems, if DB "goes Lehman", I suspect it will occur much as Lehman did: quite suddenly.
Recalling Ernest Hemingway in "The Sun Also Rises": "How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."
JustAnObserver
Deutche Bank = Germany's RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) ?
All the Eurozone's nightmares since 2010 have been down to a desperate attempt to postpone
DB's "Minsky Moment" ?
I did see a report that DB is withdrawing from a number of countries but Wall Street wasn't
on that list. Interestingly the list includes all the Scandinavian countries as well as the usual
suspects – Mexico, Turkey, Saudi, etc.
Oliver Budde
The 5% "fee" referred to in the fourth paragraph of the FT excerpt above is not the interest
rate charged on the loan but instead is the over-collateralization amount provided by Lehman in
exchange for a short-term cash loan. A normal repo loan is over-collateralized at perhaps 2%.
Lehman's and its outside auditors Ernst & Young's 'genius' was in discovering some language in
2001 or so in the then recently amended FAS 157 accounting guidance (all such guidance has been
revised and renumbered in the meantime) which suggested indirectly that if the rate of over-collateralization
was bumped up enough, you could pretend you sold the collateral instead of pledging it as collateral.
So instead of pledging the normal 102% of the loan amount in collateral, Lehman asked lenders
to please take more than that: 105%, hence "Repo 105."
Most of Lehman's lenders wouldn't touch the scam because it was so obvious, but a few non-U.S.
banks were happy to oblige Lehman. One was Deutsche Bank, to the tune of many billions of dollars
over the years. Not that that had anything to do with ex-Deutsche General Counsel for the Americas
Rob Khuzami's decision, once he became Obama's Enforcement Head at the SEC beginning in 2009,
to give Lehman, EY, Deutsche and the other lenders a pass on all that.
The few banks who did dare to help out Lehman of course charged higher than market rates for
those loans, even though they held an extra 3% in collateral, which was always made up of high
quality Treasury bonds and the like. Those lenders charged more anyway, because they knew what
Lehman was up to and knew they could wring out some extra cash in exchange for 'aiding' Lehman
in its needs. Lehman gladly paid the higher interest.
In no way did the drafters of the accounting guidance ever say, here's a way to scam the market,
have at it. But then again those drafters are a committee of CPAs from all the big firms and elsewhere,
including several from EY. So who knows how deliberate the set up was.
The scam began in 2001 or so and while it may not have been what blew up Lehman in 2008, it
did importantly mislead a lot of people in 2007 and 2008, when its use was ramped up dramatically.
And it put extra bonus money into the Lehman executives' pockets, year in and year out. No wonder
others seek to emulate it.
Tom
Deutsche Bank has hugely profited from the end of the Deutschland AG at which head it once
was. Thanks to chancellour Schroeder and his finance minister Eichle (the successor after Lafontaine
was kicked who went on to found the left party) Deutsche and the other big German banks got to
sell their industry portfolios without paying a penny of tax. It is common knowledge among industry
watchers that this money ended up as bonuses for the "masters of the universe" at the Anglo-Saxon
part of the bank which basically took over the whole bank. First invisibly and then all to visible
when Jain became CEO. German industry is now owned by Blackrock and the like. Homi soit qui mal
y pense
RBHoughton
Geithner's amorality and dereliction of duty has been apparent since his testimony in Starr
v USA. Somehow these big names are protected by the supine media.
Thank Heavens for NC – one of the most important of a handful of sites that fearlessly report.
Fingers crossed we can build a new media industry around this nexus of quality.
Pearl
Yves,
Couldn't the NY State Superintendent of Financial Services pull Deutsche's U.S. Banking License? I thought this is what Ben Lawsky was intimating in this (nearly) one year old interview on
Bloomberg, in which he (hints at?) the pulling of Deutsche's license, even though he was not at
the time talking about Repo 105:
If enough folks became vocal (enough) about the issue–couldn't we make a difference this time?
("We," as in ordinary housewives from Roswell, GA and humble bloggers such as the illustrious
Yves Smith?".) ;-)
I think you are waaaay more famous than you think you are, Yves. Indeed, you are universally
one of the most well-respected and straight-shooting authors/academics/authorities on such subjects.
And I think Mr. Lawsky would take your call or reply to an email if written by you.
I spoke with his staff (yes, me–a housewife from Roswell, GA) when he was at DFS during my
"Ocwiteration Perseveration" days of yore, and his staff was unusually generous with their time
and they seemed genuinely appreciative to get info and feedback from just regular folks.
I think Mr. Lawsky himself would be thrilled to hear from someone like you. And I think the two of you would be an extremely formidable team.
I just don't want to give up on this. It's too important. At the very least, I will forward
to him this post of yours.
"... Dilemmas of Domination contends that the US has entered into a period of decline as the world's hegemon. ..."
"... Because the US dominates international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and most of the regional development banks, their imposition of neo-liberal structural adjustments programs has led to a revolt against their destructive policies as witnessed by the left ferment especially in Latin America but also in the rest of the global South. ..."
"... I've read lots of books about globalization and free trade but none exposes the uneven playing field of free trade as good as Walden Bello. He shows that not only the evenness of playing field but also how the way U.S. is imprudently trying to dominate the world by adapting short sighted policies. These kind of policies have become the distinctive mark of recent American ideology domestically and foreign. ..."
The problems of the US mount daily from a ballooning deficit to heightened opposition from multiplying
points on the globe. Walden Bello's Dilemmas of Domination is a tour de force dissection of the causes
of these mounting problems.
He argues from an objective and non-partisan position in the global South.
Because he primarily works outside of the US and because his method relies heavily on history, his account
is compelling.
Dilemmas of Domination contends that the US has entered into a period of decline as
the world's hegemon. Three crises characterize the loss of power and prestige.
The first crisis is the problem
of manufacturing and raw materials overproduction that leads to a decline in profits, and as wages are
squeezed to stabilize profits demand falls further. Added to these problems is the fact that the US,
the consumer of last resort, cannot continue to borrow and buy forever. The IOUs to the rest of the
world will eventually have to be repaid.
A second critical problem is military overextension. According
to Bello, the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the US is not invincible. If it were, how could
guerillas continue to move about these occupied nations so freely and make nation-building into such
a farce? The US military is so strained that it has to hire mercenaries from companies like Blackwater
to protect its corporate interests abroad because a draft would undermine all of its imperial adventures.
The third crisis, perhaps the most enduring, is legitimacy. Ideologically, the US has lost its currency
to lead the world. Because the US dominates international financial institutions like the IMF, World
Bank and most of the regional development banks, their imposition of neo-liberal structural adjustments
programs has led to a revolt against their destructive policies as witnessed by the left ferment especially
in Latin America but also in the rest of the global South. Furthermore, the US bullying and sometimes
insulting treatment of the UN has further sullied the US's reputation. Added to this international delegitimation
is the quagmire of domestic politics from the surrender of civil liberties to the patently obvious corporate
control of both major parties. For readers looking for a rich and clear formulation of why the US government
is detested and feared by much of the earth's population this is the best primer.
Khalid S. Al Khateron October 26, 2005
Free trade as a tool for domination
I've read lots of books about globalization and free trade but none exposes the uneven
playing field of free trade as good as Walden Bello. He shows that not only the evenness of
playing field but also how the way U.S. is imprudently trying to dominate the world by
adapting short sighted policies. These kind of policies have become the distinctive mark of
recent American ideology domestically and foreign.
Luc REYNAERT, November 4, 2005
The weak must hang together, otherwise they hang separately
In this stringent view from the South, Walden Bello discerns three different crisis levels
beleaguering the US world domination: a military, a judicial and an economical level.
On the military front, the Iraq war shows clearly the limits of interventions: 'today the
entire US military is either in Iraq, returning from Iraq or getting ready to go.' The lesson
for the South is that the US military supremacy can be brought to a halt with guerrilla
warfare. A sledgehammer is useless in swatting flies.
On the judicial front, the US is loosing its legitimacy. In Western societies, enhancement
of individual freedom and democratic representation are the ideological cornerstones of the
regime. Nationally, recognized human rights (no access to personal information, privacy) are
jeopardized in the US by the Patriot Act in the name of the war against terrorism. For Walden
Bello, the US government is becoming authoritarian, because it is in the hands of the
military-industrial complex, which functions on a risk-free, cost-plus basis and grabs one
half of the US budget. He quotes judiciously William Pfaff: 'The military is already the most
powerful institution in the US government, largely unaccountable to the executive branch.'
Internationally, consensus and multilateralism are needed through international
institutions. However, the US behaves unilaterally. Dealings with the South are subordinated
to strategic considerations (R. Zoellick: 'countries that seek free trade agreements with the
US must cooperate on its foreign policy goals.') Walden Bello's analysis of the WTO agreements
is devastating. He calls them a free trade monopoly in the hands of corporate interests. WTO's
agreement on Agriculture is not less than 'Socialism for the Rich'. The result is that the US
democratic messianism is seen as sheer hypocrisy by the rest of the world.
Economically, some of Walden Bello's arguments are a little of the mark. Finite natural
resources and ecological space are demographic problems. The conflict between a minority in
command of assets and the majority of the population is a trade union and an election problem.
But some of his arguments are to the point. There is a widening inequality gap in the US: the
richest 1% of the population pocketed more than half the benefit of the latest tax reduction.
The actual US budget and trade deficits are unsustainable in the long run and certainly if the
inflow of foreign capital comes to a halt.
Finally, there is a new hegemon at the horizon: China with its state-assisted capitalism.
The author summarizes brilliantly China's behavior: 'nations have no permanent friends, only
permanent interests.'
But what should the South do in the meantime: regional economic blocks, G-20, South-South
cooperation, because 'the weak must hang together, otherwise they will hang separately'.
Walden Bello's hard hitting analysis of current events should be a vademecum for all
politiciams and laymen. A must read. In this context, I also recommend the works of Nafeez
Mosaddeq Ahmed and Noreena Hertz.
"... Snowden revealed some outrageous practices and constitutional abuses and the Obama administration - yes the same one that has not managed to bring a single criminal charge against a single senior banker - wants to charge Snowden with espionage. ..."
"... The fact is that Mr Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them." ..."
Snowden revealed some outrageous practices and constitutional abuses and the Obama administration
- yes the same one that has not managed to bring a single criminal charge against a single senior
banker - wants to charge Snowden with espionage.
It bears repeating; US Bankers committed literally hundreds of thousands of serious felonies
and *not one* was ever charged by the Justice Dept. under Obama's two terms.
Recently the White House spokesman said "The fact is that Mr Snowden committed very serious
crimes, and the US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should face them."
Well, either you believe serious crimes should be prosecuted or you don't.
Pick one.
But to try and be selective about it all just makes one something of a tyrant. Wielding
power when and how it suits one's aims instead of equally is pretty much the definition of tyranny
(which includes "the unreasonable or arbitrary use of power")
However, the EU has decided to drop all criminal charges against Snowden showing that the US
is losing legitimacy across the globe by the day.
The European parliament voted to lift criminal charges against American whistle-blower Edward
Snowden on Thursday.
In an incredibly close vote, EU MEPs said he should be granted protection as a "human rights
defender" in a move that was celebrated as a "chance to move forward" by Mr Snowden from Russia.
This seems both right and significant. Significant because the US power structure must
be seething. It means that the EU is moving away form the US on important matters, and that's
significant too. Right because Snowden revealed deeply illegal and unconstitutional
practices that, for the record, went waaaaAAaaay beyond the so-called 'meta-data phone records'
issue.
And why shouldn't the EU begin to carve their own path? Their interests and the US's
are wildly different at this point in history, especially considering the refugee crisis that
was largely initiated by US meddling and warmongering in the Middle East.
At this point, I would say that the US has lost all legitimacy on the subject of equal application
of the laws, and cannot be trusted when it comes to manufacturing "evidence" that is used to invade,
provoke or stoke a conflict somewhere.
The US is now the Yahoo! of countries; cheerleading our own self-described excellence and superiority
at everything when the facts on the ground say something completely different.
Quercus bicolor
cmartenson wrote:
Recently the White House spokesman said "The fact is that Mr Snowden committed very
serious crimes, and the US government and the Department of Justice believe that he should
face them."
And this "serious crime" was committed by Snowden because he saw it as the only viable path
to revealing a systematic pattern of crimes by none other than our own federal government that
are so serious that they threaten the basic founding principles on which our REPUBLIC was
founded.
lambertad
Truth is treason
You know how the old saying goes "truth is treason in the empire of lies". I'm a staunch
libertarian, but I wasn't always that way. Before that I spent most of my 20's in Special
Operations wanting to 'kill bad guys who attacked us' on 9/11. It wasn't until my last
deployment that I got ahold of Dr. Ron Paul's books and dug through them and realized his
viewpoint suddenly made much more sense than anyone else's. Not only did it make much more
sense, but it was based on Natural Law and the founding principals of our country.
A lot has been made of the fact that Snowden contributed money to Dr. Paul's 2008
presidential campaign and that this was an obvious tell that he was really an undercover
(insert whatever words the media used - traitor, anarchist, russian spy, etc.). The part that
I find troubling is the fact that Snowden revealed to the world that we are all being watched,
probably not in real time, but if they ever want to review the 'tapes' they can see what we do
essentially every minute of every day. That's BIG news to get out to the citizenry. If you've
got access to that kind of data, you don't want that getting out, but here's the kicker - Very
few in this country today even care. Nothing in this country has changed that I'm aware of.
GCHQ still spies on us and passes the info to the NSA. The NSA still spys on everyone and the
Brits and passes the info to GCHQ. Austrialia and NZ and Canda still spy on whoever and pass
the info on to whoever wants it. It's craziness.
At the same time, as Chris and others have pointed out, we're bombing people (ISIS/Al Nusra/AQ)
we supported ('moderate rebels) before we bombed them (AQ) after we bombed Sadaam and invaded
Iraq. Someone please tell me the strategy other than the "7 countries in 5 years plan". Yup,
sounds a lot like Yahoo!.
I'm looking forward to Christmas this year because I get to spend 5 days with my wife's
family again. My father-in-law is a smart man, but thinks the government is still all powerful
and has everything under control. It should make some interesting conversations and debating.
Thanks for the article Adam, interesting parallel between TPTB and Yahoo!.
Lambert here: AKP stands for Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi in Turkish, which translates to Justice
and Freedom Party. I admit that I don't know much about
Turkey's domestic politics - which is why we're very glad to have this very timely post -
but Erdogan's newly built palace (images
here) seems like a fine operational definition of "wretched excess"; Erdogan's making that
Ukrainian dude
with the private zoo in his palace, Viktor Yanukovych, look like a mendicant monk.
The worst terrorist attack in the history of the Republic of Turkey took place on October 10,
2015 in Ankara. The Ankara massacre. Two suicide bombers killed 102 of the participants in a
Peace and Democracy rally and hundreds were wounded.
Why did this happen?
To give some answers, let us go back to 2002.
Turkey's ruling Sunni Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), took power in
2002. From 2002 until 2015, it had won four general elections in a row and secured enough seats
in the national assembly to form a single party government in the first three.
Although the AKP won about 50% of the votes in the third of these elections that happened in
2011, it has been in decline since then. And, in the last general election that took place on
June 7, 2015, it failed to secure enough seats to form the government on its own. However, the
AKP is still the ruling party, at least practically, because it is the only party in the caretaker
government until the coming "repeat" election on November 1. The other parties either refused
to join the interim government or left it after a while.
A milestone between the 2011 and 2015 general elections was the presidential election of August
10, 2014. Despite the ongoing decline of the AKP, its leader and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
won 51.8% of the vote in the first round to become the first elected Turkish President. Ekmeleddin
İhsanoğlu, the joint candidate for the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist
Action Party (MHP) received 38.4% whereas Selahattin Demirtaş, the candidate of the mainly Kurdish
nationalist People's Democracy Party (HDP), received 9.8%.
However, this election was of very low turnout by Turkish standards, essentially because İhsanoğlu
is a known Islamist also. When a devotedly secularist section of the CHP voters resented İhsanoğlu
and boycotted the election, the participation turned out to be a measly 74%. This was the lowest
turnout since the coup d'état of 1980; even lower than the 79% turnout of the 2002 election that
took place after a major economic collapse in 2001.
But the main event of this presidential election was the 9.8% vote the HDP candidate Demirtaş
received. The 10% national threshold imposed by the 1980 military junta has been in place since
the 1983 general election and no Kurdish party had ever been able to cross that threshold until
June 7, 2015.
Indeed, in the 2002 election, that is, when the AKP took power, only three parties (AKP, CHP
and MHP) managed to cross the threshold. With the 2007 election, a fourth party started to appear
in the national assembly because the Kurdish parties and their leftist allies managed to bypass
the threshold through candidates entering the elections as independents and then reassembling
a party in the national assembly. However, despite that they usually secured between 5% and 7%,
this trick always led to their underrepresentation in the assembly, because a big chunk of the
votes on the independents were wasted.
When Demirtaş received 9.8%, indicating a high probability of crossing the 10% threshold, the
HDP entered the 2015 general election as a party rather than as a collection of independent candidates.
The significance of this was that had they crossed the threshold, they would have had a much larger
representation in the national assembly.
And they crossed the threshold in the June 7 general election, receiving an unexpected 13%.
When the HDP got 80 representatives and pushed the AKP below 276 by 18 in a 550 member national
assembly, the AKP rule was over, at least legally.
This was a defining moment in the history of the Republic of Turkey.
Coming out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, the Republic of Turkey inherited the
Empire's diverse identities and added a new one.
A major identity divide in the Empire had been along the religious lines: Muslim versus non-Muslim.
However, there has been a conscious cleansing of the country from non-Muslims since the early
20th century and, as a result, this divide is currently about 99% to 1%, although it
was more like 70% to 30% in the beginning.
The new identity the Republic added was that of the secular. So the new and more important
religious divide in the country is the pious versus secular divide created by the founders of
the Republic (although the origins of this goes way back). Of course, the founders were secularists,
and their interest was to engineer a secular, capitalist nation-state along the lines of most
advanced capitalist states of the West. Named after their charismatic leader, and the first president
of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal, their ideology is called Kemalism.
Interestingly, they defined the nation of this nation-state – that is, the Turkish nation –
based on religious identities. Who we call Turkish today – if by that we mean the citizens of
the Republic of Turkey – are essentially the grandchildren of the (mostly Sunni) Muslim subjects
of the Ottoman Empire, many of whom sought refuge in current-day Turkey from other parts of the
Empire to avoid religious persecution. They can be from any of the many ethnicities in the former
Empire as long as their grandparents were or became (preferably Sunni) Muslims.
But, the mostly Sunni Kurds (themselves a collection of many ethnicities) have never bought
this definition. And, despite that Sunni Islam has been the "unofficial" religion of this "secular"
Republic from the beginning, the Alevites – some of whom are Kurdish – remained, although their
number decreased some as percentage.
To sum up, the most notable current identity divides include – but are not limited to – Turkish
versus Kurdish, Sunni versus Alevite and pious versus secular.
Lastly, there is the military, out of which most founders of the Republic including Mustafa
Kemal came. Until recently, the military had been viewed by many as guardian of the secular Republic.
It took power three times: in 1960, 1971 and 1980, although there had been a number of other coup
attempts also. Seen as an arch-rival, the military had been "attacked" by the AKP government as
of 2010 in the courts captured by the Islamists. Many of its high ranking officers got jailed
for a variety of (as recently confessed by President Erdogan, mostly made-up) reasons and the
institution has been weakened. Despite this, however, whether the military is now fully under
the AKP control is debatable for a variety of reasons including that there still are many Kemalists
in its ranks.
Although the conflict between Turks and Kurds goes way before the start of the Republic, the
most recent armed conflict started in 1984. Since then, the Turkish military and Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) have been fighting on and off (most intensely in the early 1990s) and the total death
toll is at the order of tens of thousands. In a nutshell, this is the so-called "Kurdish question"
in Turkey
The PKK (founded in 1978) is an armed organization considered by many including the Turkish
Government to be a terrorist organization. The HDP (founded in 2013), on the other hand, defines
itself as a leftist and anti-nationalist party. Further, there are many non-Kurds in the party.
However, many consider the HDP as the political wing of the PKK and whether this perception is
reality or not is hotly debated in the country.
Enter President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Davutoğlu.
A darling of the West until about three years ago, Erdoğan and the AKP have evidently been
running a programme whose objectives were not so obvious to some. That this had been the case
can easily be deduced from the recent confessions of many nationally prominent figures – mostly
liberal intellectuals – who had been ardent supporters of Erdoğan and the AKP until recently.
Over the last year, it has seemed as though not a single day passed without one such figure coming
out and claiming that he or she had been cheated by Erdoğan and/or the AKP.
The existence of the programme became obvious to all shortly after Erdoğan won the presidential
election. This was because Erdoğan's handpicked heir – former Foreign and current Prime Minister
– Ahmet Davutoğlu publicly named it on August 21, 2014: the "restoration programme." According
to Davutoğlu and his aides, the term does not refer to restoring the Ottoman Empire but to repairing
the republic, democracy, foreign policy and a model of the economy that had been "injured" for
the past 92 years.
But, what did happen 92 years ago?
Well, the Ottoman Empire ended and the Republic of Turkey was founded.
Indeed, in 2001, a year before the AKP took power, the then academic Davutoğlu published a
book, "Strategic Depth," that set out the basics of this programme, so why these liberal intellectuals
feel cheated is difficult to understand.
According to the Davutoğlu doctrine, Turkey is one of those countries which are "central powers."
Because of its Ottoman legacy, Turkey is a Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Balkan, Caucasian, Caspian,
Central Asian, Gulf and Black Sea country. It can exercise influence in all these regions and
thus become a global strategic player. Or so said Davutoğlu in his "Strategic Depth." And his
now badly failed "zero problem policy with neighbours" was about Turkey's capitalising on its
soft power potential culminating from its historic and cultural links with all these regions,
as well as its "democratic institutions" and "thriving market economy"
Given these and that Davutoğlu appeared to be objecting to the Huntingtonian theory of clash
of civilisations, his doctrine had often been labelled as neo-Ottomanism. But this
label was incorrect because Ottomanism was a nineteenth-century liberal political movement
whose objective was to form a civic Ottoman national identity overarching ethnic, linguistic and
religious identities. Any careful reading of Davutoğlu's book could have revealed that his doctrine
had nothing to do with any form of Ottomanism. Furthermore, his objection to Huntington's theory
was not to that there was a clash of civilisations. He agreed with Huntington there. Where he
differed was that Islam was the better civilisation. Put differently, his doctrine was not neo-Ottomanism
but pan-Islamism.
It now appears clear even to many of his unquestioning former supporters as well as Western
powers such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) that not only Davutoğlu but
also Erdoğan agreed with Huntington's clash of civilizations thesis. Except that Erdoğan also
believed in superiority of the Islamic civilization. It now appears clear to them also that becoming
the leader of the Muslim world and (there are even rumours that) caliph of the Sunni Muslims were
two of Erdoğan's three major fantasies.
Of course, these two fantasies have always been beyond Erdoğan's reach, if only for the simple
reason that they are based on a third fantasy that Davutoğlu invented: the unifying character
of the Ottoman Empire. Ask any Arab or Balkan nation who had lived under the Ottoman rule to see
how they feel about the Empire. And there are strong rivals such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran
and even ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS), and Syria, Iraq
and Libya are in shambles, so forth. No doubt, Davutoğlu's "zero problem policy with neighbours"
eventually deformed into his current foreign policy of "honourable loneliness."
Erdoğan's third major fantasy was becoming the sultan of Turkey. This was a potentially realizable
fantasy because, after his presidency, all he needed was to get the constitution changed to introduce
a presidential system which would decorate him with executive powers. Had this happened, he could
have become the effective sultan to continue the restoration process through which Turkey would
become some sort of repressive Islamic state (which would be even more repressive than Turkey
is currently).
For this, the AKP had to win at least 330 deputies in the national assembly.
And Erdoğan had a fear. Had the AKP failed to form a single party government, several legal
cases could have been filed against him at the Supreme Council of Judges for a host of reasons
with severe criminal consequences.
To avoid this, the AKP had to win at least 276 deputies in the national assembly.
Now, I can offer some answers to the first question I asked, that is, why the Ankara massacre
happened. And I will do that in the next part, after the November 1 election.
JTMcPhee, November 1, 2015 at 7:41 am
Sounds like "Neo-Ottomanism" is of the same genera as "Neo-Liberalism."
And given how individual motivations that, for people who actually have the skills and
talents and incentives to be actual Power Players in the world, all resolve to "way more
for me, and as near as possible nothing for the rest of you," no surprise that the "neo"
kleptocratic agenda is everywhere in the ascendant.
Erdoğan's palace, Obama's Presidential Library and Theme Park, the well documented excesses
and thieveries and frauds of the ruling class pretty much everywhere - all of a piece. And
where's the organizing principle and flag, for the 99% to form up and organize around? Our
Betters are all reading out of the same implacable insatiable playbook– where's the book
for people who just seek decency, comity, and a "modest competence" for themselves and
their children, who diligently and intelligently in the Hope of Change, minimize their
"footprints" (so there's more slack for the Few to consume and use up)?
PlutoniumKun, November 1, 2015 at 12:23 pm
There has been a huge boom in Turkey under Erdogan, although its a moot point as to how
much he can take credit for it – certainly Turkey was a major beneficiary of QE, etc. My
understanding is that he and his party was a major facilitator for the construction
industry, including most notoriously of all, pretty much handing over one of the last
public parks in Istanbul to a shopping mall developer.
PlutoniumKun, November 1, 2015 at 1:15 pm
Possibly. But Erdogans political base is rural and small town regular folks – the type
of people who keep their cards close to their chests. Its entirely possible that this was a
classic case of voters being unwilling to admit to pollsters who they will vote for. And
also a case that people may reluctantly feel they should vote for a corrupt strongman over
the alternative of possible chaos. Reminds me a bit of the UK election where pollsters and
commentators got it very badly wrong.
Its interesting though that nobody seems to be alleging fraud (so far) – seems that Turkey
has a pretty robust voting system.
susan the other, November 1, 2015 at 1:48 pm
It is clear that politix in Turkey is chaos. God only knows what the freedom and justice
freaks are looking to gain. Erdogan is on the outs with everyone; NATO, Russia, the Saudis,
the USA and etc. That can only mean one thing: there is no consensus and therefore there is
no government. And Erdogan is just vamping around on the stage until he wears out his
fishnets and high heels.
Sabri Oncu -> Synoia, November 2, 2015 at 5:55 am
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are not rivals for the new Caliphate. They are rivals for
regional hegemony. So, I was combining two things together. Given that Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Iran are rivals of Turkey, Turkey cannot be the leader of the Muslim world. At least
these three will not accept Turkey's leadership. As for the Caliphate ISIL is the
competitor. But, more importantly, Arabs will not accept a Turkish as their caliph. That
was what I had in mind. But, the article is already quite long even as it is so I was
economizing, I guess.
Synoia, November 1, 2015 at 4:23 pm
It is not clear that Erdogan and the Saudi's are rivals for the new Caliphate.
The Saudi's will aim for the religious capital (Mecca) and the Turks the Legislative
Capital as under the Ottomans, and the Rules will exchange family member in marriage as is
common among royalty.
Ergogan's planace looks like it if fit for a Caliph.
Turkish Observer,
When I read articles online about this recent election people keep
referring to Erdogan as having "savvy" or making some sort of "gambit".
Perhaps you could say this, if it was in any way a fair competition.
But nothing about this election was fair.
Only days before the election, the government appointed trustees to 22
different companies that were part of a holding company that wasn't so
keen on the government. This included two television stations and two
newspapers. Immediately after seizing control of them, in clear violation
of the constitution of Turkey which prohibits the seizing of media
regardless of whether or not it helped enable a crime, they fired all
employees who had refused loyalty to the new trustees. The next editions
of these newspapers did a 180 coming out in full support of AKP and the
ruling party.
The amount of media time spent on covering AKP rallies/political
events was far greater in all state media than that given to the other
three main parties. I believe in previous elections, and most probably
this one as well, the ratio is something like 90% of all campaign airtime
was given to their party.
In addition, President Erdogan repeatedly abused his power as
president. This position is one that is supposed to be unpartisan and
ceremonial, but instead he has turned every public appearance into an
occasion to gain support for the AKP.
The ruling government has continued to systematically dismantle
bastions of opposition: whether they be found in industrial, financial or
media sectors. They have attacked academics, fomented assaults of media
channels and stations by armed groups, and refused to provide adequate
protection for opposition rallies and events.
They continue to spread lies, disinformation and enflame racial hatred
on pro-government media outlets. Several weeks ago, the result of this
were three or four nights of militant-nationalist rallies across
different areas of Turkey including Istanbul. One of the chilling calls
heard by myself and others was "we don't want war, we want genocide"
while they occasionally destroyed a kurdish-looking business or
stabbed/beat a kurdish-looking person to death. These were government
sanctioned outbursts. If the opposition tried to rally for peace, within
30min plain clothes police officers and riot police would stop them. But
rallies for genocide? Completely acceptable in Erdogan's Turkey – you
could even see some of the security forces smiling.
What comes next will be more of the same, but I can only imagine what
will happen when the economy here starts to crumble…
I expect all or some of the following to happen in the next year
politically:
- further attacks on the HDP, perhaps pushing them below 10% and using
this as an opportunity to get to the 330 seat level needed to change the
constitution
- the withering away of the militant nationalist MHP, as supporters
and politicians within this party have fewer differences with the
policies and positions of the AKP. Perhaps a split, with half of the
members crossing the aisle to the AKP.
- attacks on media interests/financial interests of the CHP, so that
any presidential system becomes a two party one, where one party always
wins (guess which). (you can expect some problems to arise with IS Bank,
if they want this outcome)
Financially:
- continued fall in visitor/tourist numbers
- further contraction of industrial production as the sanctity or
property rights a revealed to be a farce
- a complete collapse of the construction sector, if and only if the
FED starts to hike rates
- lira reaching 4 to the dollar by May
Socially:
- exodus of anyone who can get out of Turkey, a significant brain
drain
- greater conservatism within society, the imposition of more
moral/social controls
- a dramatic increase in the breadth and width of the conflict between
the Turkish military and PKK. (if and only if the HDP is dismantled as a
political outlet)
Yes another case of a global trend of resurgence of nationalism in action... Turkey now pretend
for the role of of the leader of Islamic world and that paradoxically it is nationalism that stimulates
shift toward more militant Islamism.
Notable quotes:
"... The only ones who had anything to gain from the bombings were AKP. That's undeniable. But,
its not proof, sadly. ..."
"... The 'play caliphate jibe' was a reference to his support for ISIS and to the growing importance
of religious custom in Turkey and its influence everywhere, including on law. ..."
"... BREAKING NEWS: Tonight scenes of joy in Raqqa, Mosul and Palmira...Daesh men are in a good
mood...anyone knows the reason? ..."
"... Superstition prevails in some islamic and Christian states nowadays. ..."
"... That would explain why so many AK trolls have mobilised under the comments section of every
major news agency. But doesn't quite explain where the AKP got its extra 1 million votes in Istanbul
where the CHP took over 280k of the 268k votes lost by the HDP and MHP. ..."
"... Turkey has strong hand, many, many refugees eager to get to Europe. At the same time, it is
a country which is not without its own internal problems, not least the old contradiction between Islam
and modernization. One thing remains certain, Turkey is the key state in the Near East and will be courted
more than ever by the USA and EU. ..."
"... The problem isn't those celebrating, it's the way the AKP party has sold itself as the party
that God wants people to vote for. ..."
"... Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sends Erdogan his congratulations from Raqqa ..."
"... Interesting how a country that couldn't count how many were killed in the Ankara suicide attack
for 3 days counted 54million votes in 3 hours. ..."
"... I live in Turkey and I can tell you that here is a culture of submission and complacency about
any kind of real change-they will vote out of fear, vote out of intentional ignorance of the reality
of things. At least half the nation are happy to live in a cloud of lies and delusion, sadly ..."
"... However it seems like this taking a lot of money from Saudi and somehow Turkish nationalist
does not see it as a problems . ..."
"... This is like when Netanyahu's party won the Israeli election that followed after they incited
Rabin's murder. Warmonger violence is rewarded by the voters. Unless Erdogan shows unexpected moderation,
this is a grave development. ..."
"... I don't think you understand the point I am making, I never said his goal is peace with the
Kurds. His goal was to win back the votes he lost in June and he did that. He got the nationalist vote
back by bombing the crap out of the PKK and threatening the PYD in Syria. ..."
"... Where in all this do you get the idea that I am an AKP supporter. I am criticizing the man
saying he capitalized on the deaths of soldiers to win back the important nationalist vote. Him winning
in this fashion is a terrible thing, he will change the constitution and plant himself on his throne.
Erdogan now has more power over Turkey than Ataturk ever did. HE is basically Putin with a moustache.
..."
"... Erdogan sweeps to power on the back of security and safety fears. His claim of intervention
against Daesh (a shame) and the PKK (real); coupled with his silencing of the media critics (real);
made a tremendous difference. Expect Daesh to have the welcome mat out for the black market deals -
trucks and weapons and supplies for oil and concentration on the PKK and YPK. ..."
"... Turkey, whether they know it or not, voted for a Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship and ethnic
war. The crumbling economic performance and the religious agenda parallel the path of Morsi in Egypt
... but here Erdogan has already neutered any threat from the military with all the treason trials.
..."
"... The war against the PKK was obviously a calculated risk. Voters usually rally behind the status
quo in troubled times. The terror attacks reinforced this message. ..."
"... Yes, yet another disaster. The recent farcical goings on in Portugal, the swing to the right
in Poland and Denmark and a seemingly ever increasing necessity to deal with despots and dictators.
..."
"... That is cos Erdogan controls the pools in Turkey just as the Tories controlled the polls in
Britain. To get the right-wing vote out they have the polls announcing that the election is in doubt.
Modern Capitalism doesn't just own the media. It owns the polls too. ..."
"... Because left is so attracted to internationalist and multi cultural garbage that lost its appeal
to average people . Left used to stand for workers and better working conditions ,but now stands for
pure weirdness! ..."
"... If there has been no ballot rigging, then the Turks are no different from the Americans who
voted for Bush the second time or the British who voted Cameron a second time. People will vote for
oligarchs and authoritarians when they are fearful or full of hate. ..."
"... I am not so sure about turkey. A country that embrace Kemal attaturk and consider him as national
hero but goes against his Reforms. Attaturk changed the Arabic alphabet to Latin and closed many masques
to undermine Arabic influence there but turkey now is infested with Isis and Arabic culture. I simply
do not get it. ..."
"... This result is a disaster for the EU. Erdogan has Merkel and her acolytes across Europe over
a barrel, and will drive a hard bargain for agreeing to help stem the migrant/refugee flood. ..."
"... America has gone along with the strategy of forming ISIS to overthrow Assad, from the very
beginning. The goal was to have these mostly criminals do the dying and when they achieve overthrowing
Assad, send an army to clean them out and become heroes. But reality has a way of working itself out,
then ISIS got out of hand. ..."
"... Indeed. As an ardent, self-enriching neoliberal, Erdogan's hardly a threat to the West. And
it probably suits the West's strategic interests better for Turkey to remain a mild Islamist democracy
than for it to return to Kemalism. ..."
"... Needless to say the socialist regime of the 50s in Iran taken out by Britain and the US of
the time for oil reasons was a much better vehicle for metropolitan aspirations than the shah's conservative
and authoritarian regime, because the whole country, including the rural poor outside Tehran had much
more of a stake in in it. A tragedy indeed. ..."
"... The west, come on, who are you exactly talking about? The west supports Saudi tyranny and their
jihadi underlings, Erdogan is doing the west's bidding in Syria, and played along in Libya. ..."
"... EU supported jihadis to destroy Libya and Syria, I hope you can handle a few chanting God is
great. ..."
"... Erdogan: BFF of ISIS, Nemesis of Kurds. Yep, America's ally. Feckin' perfect. Business as usual.
..."
"... Geopolitically, Turkey is an ally and partner in NATO. Turkey is a training ground and safe
zone for moderate jihadis. Turkey hates Syria and agrees with Obama that Assad must go . The Guardian
agrees with all these positions. Ergo the victory is legitimate . Just ask Portugal ..."
"... There will soon be comments describing AK party supporters as poor, uneducated, religious nutters
from enlightened Europeans. With everything going in Turkey, Erdogan is popular because out of all the
candidates he is the one the Turks think will offer economic prosperity. I think that is what matters
the most to majority of voters I guess. ..."
"... Nationalism is reaction itself. It doesn't need PKK or whatever. Was Lukashenko observing these
elections? Balls to them ..."
"... Erdogan was a polarising figure in Turkish politics he won't lose heavily (in fact he actually
won more votes through his cynical act of social imperialism) because the political opposition to him
is too incompetent and cliquey (ie non are interested in broadening their political support beyond their
base, MHP for instance call Alevites heretics and want a death list of all Kurdish activists, CHP are
uninterested in courting religious Turks or Kurds, HDP is still a nationalist party despite its liberal
pretentions) to beat Erdogan and it seems my predictions have come true. ..."
The institutionalized religion AKP built is a dangerous tool in the hands of those who have
absolute power, or any power, and no real pragmatism, nor any desire to govern all citizens fairly
and equally. If you research human rights records of Turkey, you will find out how much abuse
is perpetrated in the name of religion, in the name of sect, in the name of gender, in the name
of party affiliation.
Having superficial knowledge of these matters and claiming to speak for all Turks, what is
best for Turks is wrong. Voting for a party formed by thieves, that is perpetrating abuses, corruption,
killing its own citizens, and claiming there isn't any alternative is a lame excuse. When there
is no alternative, one creates its choices.
Hesham Abdelhafez -> Alfie Silva 1 Nov 2015 16:28
Just like that! where are the democracy of the "civilised" west gone? so all these talks about
democracy and human rights that the western media gave us headache are all crap!
AdemMeral -> Alfie Silva 1 Nov 2015 16:25
Erdogan is not Islamist. Erbakan was. Nobody can touch republic in Turkey.
Even a hint of it and Erdogan is history.
In fact Gulen was the most dangerous one and he had good people in the army. But he is history
now.
missythecat -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 16:13
I agree with you that the the opposition in Turkey isn't doing a great job. But this doesn't
justify why one should vote for erdogan. This is really interesting, I always wanted to understand
why people vote for him. Are you really not aware that he and his party members are actually breaking
the law and acting against the constitution by spending public funds for their personal or the
AKP's gain?
Are you really not aware that while people of Turkey suffer from unemployment, poor education
and poverty, he can somehow spend our money on a palace, luxury cars, etc. and his wife can close
a luxury boutique in Brussels to shop privately?
Are you really not aware that his relatives somehow always manage to land on the government's
juicy construction projects? Are you really not aware that everyone who is against him is silenced
by force (e.g. journalists)? Are we really talking about the same country and the same person?
Necati Geniş -> laticsfanfromeurope 1 Nov 2015 16:12
they learned elections from the U.S.A. and U.K. The winners are decided before the elections.
What Turkey did not learn was to have the patience to make the elections to be a product of the
will of the people which would then mean there would be less trouble with the electorate and very
little need to control them with harsh measures since they would have more confidence that their
votes actually counted and they could make a difference at the next election..
when you remove all hope of voting in a change you create more trouble for yourself.
littlewoodenblock -> Necati Geniş 1 Nov 2015 15:45
So prove him wrong, my friend. I would love to see some definitive evidence. But it is not
there. What we have everytime is some AKP jerk atanding up and saying its PKK before the police
have even opened the case to investigate! Davutoglu even came up with the stupid suggestion that
PKK and ISIS were partners in the Ankara bombing!
The only ones who had anything to gain from the bombings were AKP. That's undeniable. But,
its not proof, sadly.
littlewoodenblock -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 15:40
The 'play caliphate jibe' was a reference to his support for ISIS and to the growing importance
of religious custom in Turkey and its influence everywhere, including on law.
Whether sharia law is where Turkey arrives is unlikely, i agree, but the country will certainly
not become more liberal ...
laticsfanfromeurope 1 Nov 2015 15:39
BREAKING NEWS: Tonight scenes of joy in Raqqa, Mosul and Palmira...Daesh men are in a good
mood...anyone knows the reason?
RossNewman -> Gazzy312 1 Nov 2015 15:37
Mein Kampf was also quite popular there not so long ago, where it was a best seller.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/mar/29/turkey.books
As result I don't find this news surprising.
Candide60 1 Nov 2015 15:36
"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide
nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
Joseph Stalin
Erdogan is a dictator using religion to brainwash masses, a corrupt evil man surrounded by
weak, corrupt, ignorant yes men and women.
missythecat -> AdemMeral 1 Nov 2015 15:16
Democracy? Republic? They've already been crushed by Erdogan. He is a lonely lunatic leaving
in his something thousand room palace. Please don't troll here. On another note, yes, the only
few remaining newspapers which haven't been raided by erdogan yet, do talk about the YSK's dodgy
play with the numbers (Cumhuriyet and Sozcu) go and do some reading.
Hesham Abdelhafez 1 Nov 2015 15:10
shut up hypocrite western! you don't open your fucking mouse after what you did to Egypt and
supporting a bloody military coup and inviting the criminal in Europe!
andresh -> Alfie Silva 1 Nov 2015 15:07
Superstition prevails in some islamic and Christian states nowadays.
Mmmoke 1 Nov 2015 14:58
Taking in more than 4 million refugees and still getting the same party voted in with a majority,
is a testament to the greatness of the Turkish people. Bless them. And Europe, USA who caused
the crisis, complain about a few thousand refugees. Shame.
Gazzy312 1 Nov 2015 14:39
Really disgusted with some of the Guardians coverage always trying to imply that Erdogan will
try to rig. He is popular in Turkey you need to accept that, this is the reason the Millitary
which hate him dare not launch a coup against him.
littlewoodenblock -> Ilker Camci 1 Nov 2015 14:39
Interestingly AKP overtook MHP in the fascist-look-a-like competition. So much so that 4% of
its vote increase this election came directly from MHP!
Ozgen Killi -> Necati Geniş 1 Nov 2015 14:26
That would explain why so many AK trolls have mobilised under the comments section of every
major news agency. But doesn't quite explain where the AKP got its extra 1 million votes in Istanbul
where the CHP took over 280k of the 268k votes lost by the HDP and MHP.
BlueJayWay -> Ilker Camci 1 Nov 2015 14:23
Yeah, the reality of keeping that Islamist clown Erdogan and his fascist goons in power. This
election reeks of fraud. How can the votes have been counted that quickly?
andresh 1 Nov 2015 14:21
Erdogan has allowed new recruits to reach IS through the "porous border". He sent supplies
for IS. He ordered the security forces to look the other way when young Turkish students from
Adiyaman organized the terrorists mass murdres in Sucuk, Ankara and Diyarbakir. At the same time
he ordered killing the Kurds in Diyarbakir and tried to precent the YPG from liberating the Kurdish
Syria from IS. Erdogan is a criminal.
ID9179442 RJSWinchester 1 Nov 2015 14:19
Turkey has strong hand, many, many refugees eager to get to Europe. At the same time, it
is a country which is not without its own internal problems, not least the old contradiction between
Islam and modernization. One thing remains certain, Turkey is the key state in the Near East and
will be courted more than ever by the USA and EU.
littlewoodenblock Peter Conti 1 Nov 2015 14:18
Dont joke, at the beginning of a football match a minutes silence was held for the victims
of the ankara bombings and AKP supporters started chanting "Allah Akbar!"
Sick Fucks
SHA2014 -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 14:06
Just two lines of proof:
1. Turkey has renewed the fight against PKK one of the most effective anti-IS firces in Northern
Syria.
2. Instead of assisting civilians in Kobani when it was under siege by IS, Turkey closed the borders
to any refugees.
3. Where do you think all these foreigners who go to fight for IS from Europe pass through? It
is Turkey of course. There is no apparent attempt to stop this traffic.
There is other evidence also.
YouHaveComment -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 14:05
The problem isn't those celebrating, it's the way the AKP party has sold itself as the
party that God wants people to vote for.
That's bad news for democracy. It's also bad news for the secular space and religious freedom
that allows people of any faith or none to be members of the same community.
GoloManner Trabzonlu 1 Nov 2015 14:04
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sends Erdogan his congratulations from Raqqa
Abu Al-Izz Hanoun -> killerontheroad 1 Nov 2015 13:56
By the way ISIS consider Erdogan and his party Kafirs and vow to fight them. ..just in case
you were wondering.
1ClearSense 1 Nov 2015 13:56
Will US now support both Erdoganite Turks and YPG/PKK Kurds while they fight each other?
andresh -> decisivemoment 1 Nov 2015 13:55
Allah Akbar! Stop fascism! It was the turkish security forces that allowed young supporters
of IS from adiyaman to stage the murderes if Sucuk, Ankara and Diyarbakir. Erdogan is a cynical
murderer, inciting violence to remain i power.
thatshowitgoes -> abf310866 1 Nov 2015 13:54
Put it this way. The bank robbers leave from your house, go to rob the bank with guns you have
given them, then come back to your house with the loot - you support the bank robbers. Or perhaps
you think Turkey has no control of its borders, in which case I invite you to swan in without
a visa next time you go on holiday and see how far you get.
Trabzonlu 1 Nov 2015 13:53
As predicted, HDP and PKK have shot themselves in the foot by backing violence instead of peace
and their actions have led to this AKP majority, no one should be surprised by the result. As
you can see, free and fair elections seem reason enough for violence in the Kurdish areas as per
usual, quite how these people dream of governing a Kurdistan is beyond me. Hopefully this government
will finally grow some balls and eliminate these PKK terrorists once and for all - the people
have voted, time to shut this threat down unilaterally and with determination.
Super Tramp 1 Nov 2015 13:53
The good have lost by the hands of fraud. Foxy smile of the triumph of ignorance, brutality
and lies.. Such a dystopia it is; watching my beautiful country helpless while it's evolving to
the 3rd world for the last decade. now this is the end of the way of secularism. me and my bereaved
youthfulness lets have another bottle of wine isnt it a perfect day for the losers?
RJSWinchester 1 Nov 2015 13:52
"Democracy" wrapped in Erdogan's iron fist.
Ozgen Killi 1 Nov 2015 13:52
Interesting how a country that couldn't count how many were killed in the Ankara suicide
attack for 3 days counted 54million votes in 3 hours.
decisivemoment 1 Nov 2015 13:51
It's not necessarily that bad a result. Under the circumstances it's hardly surprising the
party promising law and order would gain seats, but they have not gained enough to amend the constitution
and the HDP has made it past Turkey's ridiculously high threshold and secured their place in parliament.
Growing pains, certainly, but not primitivism. With this somewhat conditional seal of approval
-- authority to govern without having to form a coalition with crazies, but not so much authority
as to silence mainstream opposition and use the constitution to promote authoritarianism -- we'll
have to see what Erdogan does.
I live in Turkey and I can tell you that here is a culture of submission and complacency
about any kind of real change-they will vote out of fear, vote out of intentional ignorance of
the reality of things. At least half the nation are happy to live in a cloud of lies and delusion,
sadly
Afshin Peyman -> SHA2014 1 Nov 2015 13:22
Was it the sultanate was corrupt and backward ?
That is why young Turks and attaturk tried to change the system and replace it with modern
and secular government?
However it seems like this taking a lot of money from Saudi and somehow Turkish nationalist
does not see it as a problems .
ChristineH 1 Nov 2015 13:21
Does anyone know how such a huge and populous country as Turkey counts its votes so quickly?
Only article I could find was about people counting votes by tractor headlights, having voted
at the side of the road, which makes the speed even more surprising.
This is like when Netanyahu's party won the Israeli election that followed after they incited
Rabin's murder. Warmonger violence is rewarded by the voters. Unless Erdogan shows unexpected
moderation, this is a grave development.
Mr_HanMan -> littlewoodenblock 1 Nov 2015 13:13
I don't think you understand the point I am making, I never said his goal is peace with
the Kurds. His goal was to win back the votes he lost in June and he did that. He got the nationalist
vote back by bombing the crap out of the PKK and threatening the PYD in Syria. After the
Suruc bombing the killing of the two police officers by the PKK wasn't the first time the PKK
killed during the supposed ceasefire. They shot and killed soldiers in Diyarbakir last year and
the government back then did nothing. The only reason they did something now was to get back the
nationalist vote. So it's all one big dirty game and the PKK were in on it, or they are just too
stupid to realise this as their actions harmed the HDP.
Where in all this do you get the idea that I am an AKP supporter. I am criticizing the
man saying he capitalized on the deaths of soldiers to win back the important nationalist vote.
Him winning in this fashion is a terrible thing, he will change the constitution and plant himself
on his throne. Erdogan now has more power over Turkey than Ataturk ever did. HE is basically Putin
with a moustache.
Edmund Allin -> RayMullan 1 Nov 2015 13:08
186,000 ballot boxes. About 750,000 independent (i.e. opposition) observers. 57m voters, of
whom apparently 45mn turned up. 45mn/186,000 = 241 votes per ballot box. Easy enough.
owl905 1 Nov 2015 13:06
Erdogan sweeps to power on the back of security and safety fears. His claim of intervention
against Daesh (a shame) and the PKK (real); coupled with his silencing of the media critics (real);
made a tremendous difference. Expect Daesh to have the welcome mat out for the black market deals
- trucks and weapons and supplies for oil and concentration on the PKK and YPK.
Turkey, whether they know it or not, voted for a Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship and ethnic
war. The crumbling economic performance and the religious agenda parallel the path of Morsi in
Egypt ... but here Erdogan has already neutered any threat from the military with all the treason
trials.
Putin and al-Baghdadi are probably thinking the Cheshire Cat got into their mirror this
morning.
Stechginster -> Trancedesk 1 Nov 2015 13:04
Merkel, the architect of one catastrophe, will shortly usher in another, as she promotes
the entry of Turkey into the EU, in return for Erdogan's assistance.
I should turn this into a drinking game… no, she won't. She made some positive noise about
supporting Turkey in the accession process, what was actually on the table were visa waivers for
Turkish travellers visiting the EU and (likely, although unofficially) delaying the publication
of a negative report on Turkish human rights violations.
SHA2014 -> Michael Yeovil 1 Nov 2015 13:02
The war against the PKK was obviously a calculated risk. Voters usually rally behind the
status quo in troubled times. The terror attacks reinforced this message.
ErnaMsw 1 Nov 2015 12:57
At least Turkey won't become a presidential republic. With 96.48% of votes now counted, HDP
stands at 10.47% and is guaranteed to pass the threshold.
ChemicalArif 1 Nov 2015 12:53
Quite hilarious reading the comments from most BTL posters... Simple fact is, the AKP has been
a "popular" government in Turkey for the last decade and even won the majority of votes in the
last election. Did urbane elite seriously think that they were going to be ousted from power by
a fractured, dysfunctional opposition? Beggars belief.
Of course the urbane city dwelling elite can always take to the streets to protest the result,
much like the Egyptians did. Democracy is only palatable when the city dweller's preferred candidate
is elected to power...
Tim Gray 1 Nov 2015 12:52
A very disturbing result, it is difficult to believe the vote or that the ruling party hasn't
had a hand in the unrest across the country since the voters rejected AKP in the last election.
Turkey's government will now use this result as a green light to continue its war against the
Kurds, attack trade unions, women and those opposed to this conservative, nationalist government.
Stechginster -> jharz15 1 Nov 2015 12:50
The Turkish people I personally know would share that opinion, but young Turkish expats and
the young people in the big cities such as Istanbul and Ankara are far more liberal than the average
Turkish voter in the east. I don't think it was necessarily rigged, in uncertain times, many people
vote for stability (the devil you know..) over anything else.
irem demir 1 Nov 2015 12:44
Majority of Turks are not secular, modern or democratic. But there are still so many open minded
people living in Turkey, unlike in other muslim countries. But sadly this didn't really help the
future of the country.
Phil Porter Trancedesk 1 Nov 2015 12:42
Yes, yet another disaster. The recent farcical goings on in Portugal, the swing to the
right in Poland and Denmark and a seemingly ever increasing necessity to deal with despots and
dictators.
TonyBlunt Phoenix9061210 1 Nov 2015 12:41
That is cos Erdogan controls the pools in Turkey just as the Tories controlled the polls
in Britain. To get the right-wing vote out they have the polls announcing that the election is
in doubt. Modern Capitalism doesn't just own the media. It owns the polls too.
Afshin Peyman gregmitchell87 1 Nov 2015 12:38
Because left is so attracted to internationalist and multi cultural garbage that lost its
appeal to average people .
Left used to stand for workers and better working conditions ,but now stands for pure weirdness!
Michael Yeovil 1 Nov 2015 12:35
So six months the AKP Government obtained it's worst ever result to it's best . In that six
months, the worst terror attack on the country happened, civil war was resumed with the PKK, inflation
rose to it's worse rate since the AKP came to power, unemployment rose, - but then the AKP obtain
the best ever result it is obtained !
Make of that what you will !!
GordonBrownStain 1 Nov 2015 12:35
The Poles voted for a shower of ignorant pricks and so did us Brits, that's democracy, the
Muslims are no different from us after all
Simon100 1 Nov 2015 12:34
If there has been no ballot rigging, then the Turks are no different from the Americans
who voted for Bush the second time or the British who voted Cameron a second time. People will
vote for oligarchs and authoritarians when they are fearful or full of hate.
Trancedesk -> studious1 1 Nov 2015 12:34
And to think we were entertaining Turkey joining the EU not that long ago.
Erdogan is now in an even stronger position, and will demand entry in return for helping Merkel
deal with the consequences of her idiocy.
Afshin Peyman 1 Nov 2015 12:33
I am not so sure about turkey. A country that embrace Kemal attaturk and consider him as
national hero but goes against his Reforms. Attaturk changed the Arabic alphabet to Latin and
closed many masques to undermine Arabic influence there but turkey now is infested with Isis and
Arabic culture. I simply do not get it.
Trancedesk 1 Nov 2015 12:32
This result is a disaster for the EU. Erdogan has Merkel and her acolytes across Europe
over a barrel, and will drive a hard bargain for agreeing to help stem the migrant/refugee flood.
Merkel, the architect of one catastrophe, will shortly usher in another, as she promotes
the entry of Turkey into the EU, in return for Erdogan's assistance. Western Europe, the cradle
of Western civilisation, is doomed and we should probably leave.
glad2baway 1 Nov 2015 12:30
Well, if that is democracy then we have to sometimes accept that this is bad news. I am surprised
at the result. What does Turkey do now? Have a revolution just because lots of people don't like
the result? As the saying goes, people get the governments they deserve. So something has gone
badly wrong somewhere.
1ClearSense -> TeeJayzed Addy 1 Nov 2015 12:29
America has gone along with the strategy of forming ISIS to overthrow Assad, from the very
beginning. The goal was to have these mostly criminals do the dying and when they achieve overthrowing
Assad, send an army to clean them out and become heroes. But reality has a way of working itself
out, then ISIS got out of hand.
djhurley -> SUNLITE 1 Nov 2015 12:27
Indeed. As an ardent, self-enriching neoliberal, Erdogan's hardly a threat to the West.
And it probably suits the West's strategic interests better for Turkey to remain a mild Islamist
democracy than for it to return to Kemalism.
Mr_HanMan -> littlewoodenblock 1 Nov 2015 12:26
Lets go back, the bombing in Suruc happened, the HDP and PKK blamed the AKP and then went on
a killing spree of Turkish police officers and soldiers. Then in cities in the south east HDP
members declaring autonomy, trenches being dug in the middle of the streets using machinery owned
by the local government authority (HDP).
No matter which way you look at it the PKK is the reason why the HDP lost a lot of votes. To
add any operation done against the PYD in Syria is a boost for the AKP when it comes to the nationalist
vote.
GreatUncleEuphoria -> GreatUncleEuphoria 1 Nov 2015 12:26
Needless to say the socialist regime of the 50s in Iran taken out by Britain and the US
of the time for oil reasons was a much better vehicle for metropolitan aspirations than the shah's
conservative and authoritarian regime, because the whole country, including the rural poor outside
Tehran had much more of a stake in in it. A tragedy indeed.
1ClearSense -> littlewoodenblock 1 Nov 2015 12:22
The west, come on, who are you exactly talking about? The west supports Saudi tyranny and
their jihadi underlings, Erdogan is doing the west's bidding in Syria, and played along in Libya.
GreatUncleEuphoria -> Paul Easton 1 Nov 2015 12:22
Iran is, broadly. split between a metropolitan urban and ( urbane ) group, and a religious
rural, provincial and suburban group, like Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. The Islamic revolution
traded the influence of the former for the latter, like the brief rule in Egypt of the MBrotherhood.
riceuten64 birdcv 1 Nov 2015 12:20
He's a gradualist. He will make it more and more difficult, say, to drink alcohol, as he has
already done. He will put pressure on the few remaining independent news outlets. He will further
censor the internet. He will change electoral systems to suit the AKP. He has already made his
wish for an Executive Presidency clear.
1ClearSense -> LittleMsGggrrrrr 1 Nov 2015 12:19
EU supported jihadis to destroy Libya and Syria, I hope you can handle a few chanting God
is great.
TeeJayzed -> Addy 1 Nov 2015 12:18
Erdogan: BFF of ISIS, Nemesis of Kurds. Yep, America's ally. Feckin' perfect. Business
as usual.
DiplomaticImmunity 1 Nov 2015 12:17
Geopolitically, Turkey is an "ally and partner" in NATO. Turkey is a training ground and
"safe zone" for "moderate" jihadis. Turkey hates Syria and agrees with Obama that "Assad must
go". The Guardian agrees with all these positions. Ergo the victory is "legitimate". Just ask
Portugal
littlewoodenblock -> atkurebeach 1 Nov 2015 12:12
Rubbish. AKP reignited the war with Kurds to polarise the nation and it is AKP that locked
cities down for days on end, who is killing kurds with out any legal process whatsoever, it is
allegedly AKP supporters that are threatening on television opposition journalists with violence.
Then when that violence occurs im exactly the way threatened the supporter - a ministerial candidate
- is not even questioned by police, by he took the stage with Davutoglu just 2 days ago.
AKP is allegedly courting mercenaries and thugs to achieve its aims ...
AKP is attacking kurds in northern syria and iraq because they are too strong and they are
closing the gap across the Euphrates and further west - AKP have made it very clear they will
not tolerate that. Why, i wonder. ISIS supply lines allegedly.
And you are still taliking about PKK.
Hilarious
littlewoodenblock -> Paul Easton 1 Nov 2015 12:06
Civil war, terrorism, providing water to Cyprus, making the parliamentary election about him,
the President, silencing fully opposition media, blaming the wests fear of a strong turkey to
explain economic woes ... When you have complete control you can achieve what you want easily.
The Turks are not fools, they are being lied to blatantly and they are scared
Lathan Ismail 1 Nov 2015 12:04
There will soon be comments describing AK party supporters as poor, uneducated, religious
nutters from "enlightened" Europeans. With everything going in Turkey, Erdogan is popular because
out of all the candidates he is the one the Turks think will offer economic prosperity. I think
that is what matters the most to majority of voters I guess.
Down2dirt -> atkurebeach 1 Nov 2015 11:56
Nationalism is reaction itself. It doesn't need PKK or whatever. Was Lukashenko observing
these elections? Balls to them
Newcurrency 1 Nov 2015 11:49
There is no ethnic pressure above Kurds for at least 10 years. You are the ones who turned
our country into a bloodbath -- Killing innocent teachers, newly graduated doctors, officer's wifes
who's only fault is sitting in their house, know your facts before you talk about peace.
Don't expect people to support a man who talks of peace while his brother is in mountains fighting
with states army.
Newcurrency 1 Nov 2015 11:42
I cant believe why major media sites like guardian is backing up a separatist like Selahattin
Demirtaş. Do you really think a man who threatens people with violent street acts if hdp cant
pass the election threshold is a peace talker ? The Tsipras of Turkey ? Don't mock with peoples
intellegence...
KK47 1 Nov 2015 11:42
Few days ago I was berated by some posters for pointing out that though Erdogan was a polarising
figure in Turkish politics he won't lose heavily (in fact he actually won more votes through his
cynical act of social imperialism) because the political opposition to him is too incompetent
and cliquey (ie non are interested in broadening their political support beyond their base, MHP
for instance call Alevites heretics and want a death list of all Kurdish activists, CHP are uninterested
in courting religious Turks or Kurds, HDP is still a nationalist party despite its liberal pretentions)
to beat Erdogan and it seems my predictions have come true.
Now here's my next prediction - watch for a more aggressive/militaristic approach towards
Syria by the Turkish government.
"... The Theory of Distributional Coalitions Mancur Olson's theory of distributional coalitions holds that, as societies establish themselves, group interests become more identifiable, and subsets of the society organize in an effort to secure these interests. ..."
"... This exclusivity factor is of special importance in the way these rent-seeking (or special-interest) groups operate, since, unlike highly-encompassing organizations, exclusive organizations do not have an incentive to increase the productivity of the society. This is due to the disproportion between the sizes of the exclusive organization and the population. To use Olson's idiom, such organizations are in a position either to make larger the pie the society produces or to obtain larger slices for their members. ..."
"... That is still the case even when the organization's cost to the society is significantly more than the benefits it seeks for its members. Such behavior is not at all unexpected of exclusive organizations, since it is the very policy of exclusion itself that enables the group to distribute more to its members.In that respect, disproportional allocation of resources goes hand in hand with barriers to entry into the favored areas of the special-interest group. ..."
"... The genesis of the Turkish deep state is traceable to the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, ttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti ), a secret society founded in Istanbul in 1889 by a group of medical students who had a passion for reform in the Ottoman Empire.3 The CUP organized so extensively that, in less than two decades, it became a revolutionary political organization with branches inside and outside the Ottoman Empire.4 Within the organization existed numerous factions, and the body of membership was ethnically and even ideologically diverse. ..."
"... The CUP used the Fedaiin to have its political opponents assassinated, among other things, and later on, employed the Special Organization in the mass killings of the Ottoman- Armenians in 1915.8 The CUP disbanded in 1918, a year that also marked the beginning of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. ..."
"... "Unionism" ( ttihatç l k ) has persisted in the political culture of Turkey, and has manifested itself primarily in (1) ultranationalism, (2) military involvement/ intervention in politics, and (3) justification of extrajudicial activities and violence in the name of the fatherland ( vatan ). ..."
"... Of particular importance among these clandestine operations were those by the Gendarmarie Intelligence and Counter-terror Unit (J TEM, Jandarma stihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele ), which is allegedly responsible for thousands of extrajudicial executions and assassinations of PKK sympathizers and supporters. ..."
This paper argues that Mancur Olson's theory of distributional coalitions largely explains this
network's raison d'être. The paper first outlines the main tenets of the theory, and then examines the historical roots
of the Turkish deep state, as well as the paradigm shift its exposure caused in the public opinion. The network's
exclusive character,
impacts on the workings of the Turkish society, and finally
efforts to sustain its dominating influence, which is manifested especially in its attempts
to reverse the country's democratization process,
demonstrate that the emergence, influence, and the incentives of the Turkish deep state confirm
the fundamental assumptions of Olson's theory.
The Theory of Distributional Coalitions Mancur Olson's theory of distributional coalitions
holds that, as societies establish themselves, group interests become more identifiable, and subsets
of the society organize in an effort to secure these interests. Since these interests are best served by coordinated action, institutions emerge. Yet, such institutions tend to be exclusive by nature, and pursue only the interests of their
own members, who account to a very small minority.
This exclusivity factor is of special importance in the way these rent-seeking (or special-interest)
groups operate, since, unlike highly-encompassing organizations, exclusive organizations do not have
an incentive to increase the productivity of the society. This is due to the disproportion between the sizes of the exclusive organization and the population. To use Olson's idiom, such organizations are in a position either to make larger the pie the society
produces or to obtain larger slices for their members.
"Our intuition tells us," Olson says, "that the first method will rarely be chosen."2 Because,
on the one hand, it is very costly to increase the productivity of society as a whole, and on the
other, even if this is achieved, the The Rise and Decline of the Turkish "Deep State": The Ergenekon
Case 101 members of the minuscule organization will accordingly reap only a minuscule portion of
the benefits.
Therefore, exclusive groups aim to present their own interests as being the interests of their
constituencies, and to use all of their organizational power for collective action in that direction.
That is still the case even when the organization's cost to the society is significantly more
than the benefits it seeks for its members. Such behavior is not at all unexpected of exclusive organizations, since it is the very policy
of exclusion itself that enables the group to distribute more to its members.In that respect, disproportional allocation of resources goes hand in hand with barriers to entry
into the favored areas of the special-interest group.
Yet the existence of barriers to entry further damages the society by reducing the economic growth.
When coupled with the interferences of the special-interest groups with the possibilities of change
in the existing state of affairs, the level of the reduction in economic growth can be large.
In order to achieve their goals, special-interest groups engage in lobbying activities and collusion
– both of which, by creating special provisions and exceptions, further increase not only inefficiency
but also (1) the complexity of regulation, (2) the scope of government, and (3) the complexity of
understandings.
The Formation and the Evolution of the Turkish Deep State The genesis of the Turkish deep
state is traceable to the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti),
a secret society founded in Istanbul in 1889 by a group of medical students who had a passion for
reform in the Ottoman Empire.3 The CUP organized so extensively that, in less than two decades, it
became a revolutionary political organization with branches inside and outside the Ottoman Empire.4
Within the organization existed numerous factions, and the body of membership was ethnically and
even ideologically diverse.
Yet it was the commonly-shared goal of changing the regime rather than conformity that bound the
members together, and they successfully achieved that goal with the Young Turk Revolution of 1908,
which restored the Constitution of 1876 (Kanun-ı Esasi) that restricted the powers of the
Sultan, and made the Ottoman Empire a constitutional monarchy again after 32 years of absolutism.
The genesis of the Turkish deep state is traceable to the Committee of Union and Progress, a secret
society founded in Istanbul in 1889 by a group of medical students who had a passion for reform in
the Ottoman Empire SERDAR KAYA 102 What makes the CUP extraordinary as a case is that it never fully
transformed into a genuine political party even after the revolution it brought about.
Instead, it continued to operate as the secret committee it always was.5 Back then, in reference
to this fact, some of the critics of the CUP had coined the phrase "invisible people" (rical-i
gayb).6 In the end, this code of conduct rendered the committee as a clandestine force that exerted
influence by informal means in order to change the course of affairs the way it saw fit.
The reflections of that proclivity are traceable in many of the major occurrences of the time.
In what is today commonly referred to as the coup of 1913, for example, a group of CUP operatives
broke into the Sublime Porte as the Cabinet was in session, murdered the minister of defense and
two prominent government officials, and forced the Grand Vizier, the head of the Cabinet, to resign
immediately.
The coup of 1913 is also important in that it set a precedent in the country for military interventions
and ultimatums, the latest of which occurred on April 27, 2007.
A second example to the code of conduct of the CUP may be the clandestine activities of the Special
Organization7 (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa).
Although the CUP established the Special Organization in 1913, ten months after the coup of 1913,
it was in fact the continuation of the Fedaiin, the secret organization the CUP established in 1905
– that is, before the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.
The CUP used the Fedaiin to have its political opponents assassinated, among other things, and
later on, employed the Special Organization in the mass killings of the Ottoman- Armenians in 1915.8
The CUP disbanded in 1918, a year that also marked the beginning of the dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire after World War I.
However, many of its members as well as the political culture it created survived within the Republic
of Turkey.
To this day, "Unionism" (İttihatçılık) has persisted in the political culture of Turkey,
and has manifested itself primarily in (1) ultranationalism, (2) military involvement/ intervention
in politics, and (3) justification of extrajudicial activities and violence in the name of the fatherland
(vatan).
Nevertheless, different aspects of this political culture have gained primacy in different periods,
and with the influence of the changes in the domestic and international conjuncture, it more or less
evolved. For example, during the One Party Era (1925-45), the influence of interwarperiod fascism further
radicalized the nationalist ideology of the ruling cadre. Then, in the 1960s, variations of the same Unionist background found expression The Rise and
Decline of the Turkish "Deep State": The Ergenekon Case 103 in the rightist and leftist political
movements, which, unsurprisingly, entered into violent conflict in the 1970s.
In the mid-1980s, the Kurdish question reemerged with the terrorist activities of the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), the separatist guerilla group, which became a source of instability in the
southeast region of the country, and in so doing, provided a new fertile ground for the clandestine
operations of the Turkish deep state.
Of particular importance among these clandestine operations were those by the Gendarmarie Intelligence
and Counter-terror Unit (JİTEM, Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele), which is allegedly
responsible for thousands of extrajudicial executions and assassinations of PKK sympathizers and
supporters.
Yet the same decade also marked the time period in which Turkey opened its borders and started
to integrate with the rest of the world. As a result, after the 1980s, new social, political and economic perspectives started to emerge. However, this new West that Turkey came to closer contact with during and after the 1980s was
fundamentally different from the West of the interwar period in that the former was democratic, and
the latter fascist.
The increasing interaction with the West did not instantly trigger the demands for democratization
in the country. It was the Susurluk scandal and a combination of other events that occurred approximately a decade
later that started to dramatically shift the prevalant paradigms. On the one hand, these experiences created a more profound societal cognizance of questioning
authority, and on the other, in line with these experiences, people came to attach new meanings to
the nature of the state-society relations in Turkey in a manner which provided a more convenient
ground for the democratization process in the country.
Apparently, these paradigm shifts also coincided with the developments since the Helsinki European
Council of 1999, where the European Union (EU) formally referred to Turkey as a candidate and thus
invigorated the country's accession process.
"... During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya, and, when the instability created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention there. ..."
"... Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not ..."
"... Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called "groupthink," the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting, making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission, and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ..."
"... The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street. All these agencies are coordinated by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council. Certain key areas of the judiciary belong to the Deep State, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose actions are mysterious even to most members of Congress. ..."
"... The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted , appeared in paperback on August 27, 2013. ..."
"... "These men, largely private, were functioning on a level different from the foreign policy of the United States, and years later when New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan read through the entire documentary history of the war, that history known as the Pentagon Papers, he would come away with one impression above all, which was that the government of the United States was not what he had thought it was; it was as if there were an inner U.S. government, what he called 'a centralized state, far more powerful than anything else, for whom the enemy is not simply the Communists but everything else, its own press, its own judiciary, its own Congress, foreign and friendly governments – all these are potentially antagonistic. ..."
"... The IMF/World Bank scam was working for a while. It doesn't work any more: South American countries simply reject it. And the US has no power to muscle South American countries any more; I'm not quite sure how they managed to become immune to US military intervention, but they have. They have had about 200 years of trial and error in figuring out how. ..."
"... Just before the Civil War, we saw the same dynamic: most of the country was completely disillusioned about the "slavocracy", as they called the corrupt US government dominated by slaveholders. This led to the election of Lincoln, the destruction of the Whig Party, and finally, the Civil War. ..."
Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source
of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers,
carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber
of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung.
That was their return cargo.
– The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (1871)
There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another,
more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists
at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip
of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via
elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according
to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power.
[1]
During the last five years, the news media has been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics
of Washington. The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become
the new normal. That is certainly the case, and I have been among the harshest critics of this development.
But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American
governmental system. On one level, the critique is self-evident: In the domain that the public can
see, Congress is hopelessly deadlocked in the worst manner since the 1850s, the violently rancorous
decade preceding the Civil War.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania
Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country…
As I wrote in
The Party is Over, the present objective of congressional Republicans is to render the
executive branch powerless, at least until a Republican president is elected (a goal that voter suppression
laws in GOP-controlled states
are clearly intended to accomplish). President Obama cannot enact his domestic policies and budgets:
Because of incessant GOP filibustering, not only could he not fill the large number of vacancies
in the federal judiciary, he could not even get his most innocuous presidential appointees into office.
Democrats controlling the Senate have responded by weakening the filibuster of nominations, but Republicans
are sure to react with other parliamentary delaying tactics. This strategy amounts to congressional
nullification of executive branch powers by a party that controls a majority in only one house of
Congress.
Despite this apparent impotence, President Obama can liquidate American citizens without due processes,
detain prisoners indefinitely without charge, conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people
without judicial warrant and engage in unprecedented - at least since the McCarthy era - witch hunts
against federal employees (the so-called "Insider Threat Program"). Within the United States, this
power is characterized by massive displays of intimidating force by
militarized federal, state and local
law enforcement. Abroad, President Obama can start wars at will and engage in virtually any other
activity whatsoever without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress, such as arranging the
forced landing of a plane carrying a sovereign head of state over foreign territory. Despite
the habitual cant of congressional Republicans about executive overreach by Obama, the would-be dictator,
we have until recently heard very little from them about these actions - with the minor exception
of comments from gadfly Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democrats, save a few mavericks such as Ron
Wyden of Oregon, are not unduly troubled, either - even to the extent of
permitting seemingly perjured congressional testimony under oath by executive branch officials
on the subject of illegal surveillance.
These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend
to be disregarded as background noise. During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt
ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government
somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi's regime in Libya, and, when the instability
created by that coup spilled over into Mali, provide overt and covert assistance to French intervention
there. At a time when there was heated debate about continuing meat inspections and civilian air
traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government was somehow able to commit $115 millionto keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay at least
£100m to the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over and
access to that country's intelligence. Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways have
collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During that same
period of time, the government spent
$1.7
billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This mammoth
structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a
yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined. A
yottabyte is equal to 500 quintillion pages of text. They need that much storage to archive every
single trace of your electronic life.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania
Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent
patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state
whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial
cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in
the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment." All complex
societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation.
In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the
Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution
is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.
Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine
enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that
allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.
[2]
How did I come to write an analysis of the Deep State, and why am I equipped to write it? As a
congressional staff member for 28 years specializing in national security and possessing a top secret
security clearance, I was at least on the fringes of the world I am describing, if neither totally
in it by virtue of full membership nor of it by psychological disposition. But, like virtually every
employed person, I became, to some extent, assimilated into the culture of the institution I worked
for, and only by slow degrees, starting before the invasion of Iraq, did I begin fundamentally to
question the reasons of state that motivate the people who are, to quote George W. Bush, "the deciders."
Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist
Irving L. Janis called "groupthink,"
the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers. This syndrome
is endemic to Washington: The town is characterized by sudden fads, be it negotiating biennial budgeting,
making grand bargains or invading countries. Then, after a while, all the town's cool kids drop those
ideas as if they were radioactive. As in the military, everybody has to get on board with the mission,
and questioning it is not a career-enhancing move. The universe of people who will critically examine
the goings-on at the institutions they work for is always going to be a small one. As Upton Sinclair
said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not
understanding it."
A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the
ordinariness of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time.
Government life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue
under the Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it's 11:00
in the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life
is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist. After a
while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite
remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles
off steel plate: "You mean the
number of terrorist groups we are fighting is classified?" No wonder so few people are
whistle-blowers, quite apart from the vicious retaliation whistle-blowing often provokes: Unless
one is blessed with imagination and a fine sense of irony, growing immune to the curiousness of one's
surroundings is easy. To paraphrase the inimitable Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know all that I knew,
at least until I had had a couple of years away from the government to reflect upon it.
The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security
and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department
of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department. I also include
the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement
of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street. All these agencies are coordinated
by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council. Certain key areas of
the judiciary belong to the Deep State, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose
actions are mysterious even to most members of Congress. Also included are a handful of vital federal
trial courts, such as the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Manhattan, where
sensitive proceedings in national security cases are conducted. The final government component (and
possibly last in precedence among the formal branches of government established by the Constitution)
is a kind of rump Congress consisting of the congressional leadership and some (but not all) of the
members of the defense and intelligence committees. The rest of Congress, normally so fractious and
partisan, is mostly only intermittently aware of the Deep State and when required usually submits
to a few well-chosen words from the State's emissaries.
I saw this submissiveness on many occasions. One memorable incident was passage of the
Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008. This legislation retroactively legalized the Bush administration's
illegal and unconstitutional surveillance first revealed by The New York Times in 2005 and
indemnified the telecommunications companies for their cooperation in these acts. The bill passed
easily: All that was required was the invocation of the word "terrorism" and most members of Congress
responded like iron filings obeying a magnet. One who responded in that fashion was Senator Barack
Obama, soon to be coronated as the presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention in
Denver. He had already won the most delegates by campaigning to the left of his main opponent, Hillary
Clinton, on the excesses of the global war on terror and the erosion of constitutional liberties.
As the indemnification vote showed, the Deep State does not consist only of government agencies.
What is euphemistically called "private enterprise" is an integral part of its operations. In a special
series in The Washington Post called "Top
Secret America," Dana Priest and William K. Arkin described the scope of the privatized Deep
State and the degree to which it has metastasized after the September 11 attacks. There are now 854,000
contract personnel with top-secret clearances - a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared
civilian employees of the government. While they work throughout the country and the world, their
heavy concentration in and around the Washington suburbs is unmistakable: Since 9/11, 33 facilities
for top-secret intelligence have been built or are under construction. Combined, they occupy the
floor space of almost three Pentagons - about 17 million square feet. Seventy percent of the intelligence
community's budget goes to paying contracts. And the membrane between government and industry is
highly permeable: The Director of National Intelligence,
James R. Clapper, is
a former executive of Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the government's largest intelligence contractors.
His predecessor as director,
Admiral Mike McConnell, is the current vice chairman of the same company; Booz Allen is 99 percent
dependent on government business. These contractors now set the political and social tone of Washington,
just as they are increasingly setting the direction of the country, but they are doing it quietly,
their doings unrecorded in the Congressional Record or the Federal Register, and
are rarely subject to congressional hearings.
Washington is the most important node of the Deep State that has taken over America, but it is not
the only one. Invisible threads of money and ambition connect the town to other nodes. One is Wall
Street, which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary
marionette theater. Should the politicians forget their lines and threaten the status quo, Wall Street
floods the town with cash and lawyers to help the hired hands remember their own best interests.
The executives of the financial giants even have de facto criminal immunity. On March 6, 2013, testifying
before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Attorney General Eric Holder stated the following: "I am concerned that the size of some of these
institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are
hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a
negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy." This, from the chief law
enforcement officer of a justice system that has practically
abolished the constitutional right to trial
for poorer defendants charged with certain crimes. It is not too much to say that Wall Street may
be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has
the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams
of avarice - certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.
[3]
The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities we
have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert Rubin,
Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic involves persons
connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General David Petraeus
joined
KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity firm
with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance. General
Petraeus' expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known
and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State do not take up
the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior
fellow at the
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course,
the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.
[4]
Petraeus and most of the avatars of the Deep State - the White House advisers who urged Obama
not to impose compensation limits on Wall Street CEOs, the contractor-connected think tank experts
who besought us to "stay the course" in Iraq, the economic gurus who perpetually demonstrate that
globalization and deregulation are a blessing that makes us all better off in the long run - are
careful to pretend that they have no ideology. Their preferred pose is that of the politically neutral
technocrat offering well considered advice based on profound expertise. That is nonsense. They are
deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class, an ideology that is neither
specifically Democrat nor Republican. Domestically, whatever they might privately believe about essentially
diversionary social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, they almost invariably believe in the
"Washington Consensus": financialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying
of labor. Internationally, they espouse 21st-century "American Exceptionalism": the right and duty
of the United States to meddle in every region of the world with coercive diplomacy and boots on
the ground and to ignore
painfully won international
norms of civilized behavior.
To paraphrase what Sir John Harrington said more than 400 years ago about treason, now that the
ideology of the Deep State has prospered, none dare call it ideology.
[5] That
is why describing torture with the word "torture" on broadcast television is treated less as political
heresy than as an inexcusable lapse of Washington etiquette: Like smoking a cigarette on camera,
these days it is simply "not done."
After Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent and depth of surveillance by the National
Security Agency, it has become publicly evident that Silicon Valley is a vital node of the Deep State
as well. Unlike military and intelligence contractors, Silicon Valley overwhelmingly sells to the
private market, but its business is so important to the government that a strange relationship has
emerged. While the government could simply dragoon the high technology companies to do the NSA's
bidding, it would prefer cooperation with so important an engine of the nation's economy, perhaps
with an implied quid pro quo. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary indulgence the government
shows the Valley in intellectual property matters. If an American "jailbreaks" his smartphone (i.e.,
modifies it so that it can use a service provider other than the one dictated by the manufacturer),
he could receive
a fine
of up to $500,000 and several years in prison; so much for a citizen's vaunted property rights
to what he purchases. The libertarian pose of the Silicon Valley moguls, so carefully cultivated
in their public relations, has always been a sham. Silicon Valley has long been tracking for commercial
purposes the activities of every person who uses an electronic device, so it is hardly surprising
that the Deep State should emulate the Valley and do the same for its own purposes. Nor is it surprising
that it should conscript the Valley's assistance.
Still, despite the essential roles of lower Manhattan and Silicon Valley, the center of gravity
of the Deep State is firmly situated in and around the Beltway. The Deep State's physical expansion
and consolidation around the Beltway would seem to make a mockery of the frequent pronouncement that
governance in Washington is dysfunctional and broken. That the secret and unaccountable Deep State
floats freely above the gridlock between both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is the paradox of American
government in the 21st century: drone strikes, data mining, secret prisons and
Panopticon-like
control on the one hand; and on the other, the ordinary, visible parliamentary institutions of
self-government declining to the status of a banana republic amid the gradual collapse of public
infrastructure.
The results of this contradiction are not abstract, as a tour of the rotting, decaying, bankrupt
cities of the American Midwest will attest. It is not even confined to those parts of the country
left behind by a Washington Consensus that decreed the financialization and deindustrialization of
the economy in the interests of efficiency and shareholder value. This paradox is evident even within
the Beltway itself, the richest metropolitan area in the nation. Although demographers and urban
researchers invariably count Washington as a "world city," that is not always evident to those who
live there. Virtually every time there is a severe summer thunderstorm, tens - or even hundreds -
of thousands of residents
lose power, often for many days. There are occasional water restrictions over wide areas because
water mains, poorly constructed and inadequately maintained,
have burst.
[6] The
Washington metropolitan area considers it a Herculean task just to build a rail link to its international
airport - with luck it may be completed by 2018.
It is as if Hadrian's Wall was still fully manned and the fortifications along the border with
Germania were never stronger, even as the city of Rome disintegrates from within and the life-sustaining
aqueducts leading down from the hills begin to crumble. The governing classes of the Deep State may
continue to deceive themselves with their dreams of Zeus-like omnipotence, but others do not. A
2013 Pew Poll that interviewed 38,000 people around the world found that in 23 of 39 countries
surveyed, a plurality of respondents said they believed China already had or would in the future
replace the United States as the world's top economic power.
The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on
terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic
social structure and political dysfunction. Washington is the headquarters of the Deep State, and
its time in the sun as a rival to Rome, Constantinople or London may be term-limited by its overweening
sense of self-importance and its habit, as Winwood Reade said of Rome, to "live upon its principal
till ruin stared it in the face." "Living upon its principal," in this case, means that the Deep
State has been extracting value from the American people in vampire-like fashion.
We are faced with two disagreeable implications. First, that the Deep State is so heavily entrenched,
so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it
is almost impervious to change. Second, that just as in so many previous empires, the Deep State
is populated with those whose instinctive reaction to the failure of their policies is to double
down on those very policies in the future. Iraq was a failure briefly camouflaged by the wholly propagandistic
success of the so-called surge; this legerdemain allowed for the surge in Afghanistan, which equally
came to naught. Undeterred by that failure, the functionaries of the Deep State plunged into Libya;
the smoking rubble of the Benghazi consulate, rather than discouraging further misadventure, seemed
merely to incite the itch to bomb Syria. Will the Deep State ride on the back of the American people
from failure to failure until the country itself, despite its huge reserves of human and material
capital, is slowly exhausted? The dusty road of empire is strewn with the bones of former great powers
that exhausted themselves in like manner.
But, there are signs of resistance to the Deep State and its demands. In the aftermath of the Snowden
revelations,
the House narrowly failed to pass an amendment that would have defunded the NSA's warrantless
collection of data from US persons. Shortly thereafter, the president, advocating yet another military
intervention in the Middle East, this time in Syria, met with such overwhelming congressional skepticism
that he changed the subject by grasping at a diplomatic lifeline thrown to him by Vladimir Putin.
[7]
Has the visible, constitutional state, the one envisaged by Madison and the other Founders, finally
begun to reassert itself against the claims and usurpations of the Deep State? To some extent, perhaps.
The unfolding revelations of the scope of the NSA's warrantless surveillance have become so egregious
that even institutional apologists such as Senator Dianne Feinstein have begun to backpedal - if
only rhetorically - from their knee-jerk defense of the agency. As more people begin to waken from
the fearful and suggestible state that 9/11 created in their minds, it is possible that the Deep
State's
decade-old tactic of crying "terrorism!" every time it faces resistance is no longer eliciting
the same Pavlovian response of meek obedience. And the American people, possibly even their legislators,
are growing tired
of endless quagmires in the Middle East.
But there is another more structural reason the Deep State may have peaked in the extent of its
dominance. While it seems to float above the constitutional state, its essentially parasitic, extractive
nature means that it is still tethered to the formal proceedings of governance. The Deep State thrives
when there is tolerable functionality in the day-to-day operations of the federal government. As
long as appropriations bills get passed on time, promotion lists get confirmed, black (i.e., secret)
budgets get rubber-stamped, special tax subsidies for certain corporations are approved without controversy,
as long as too many awkward questions are not asked, the gears of the hybrid state will mesh noiselessly.
But when one house of Congress is taken over by tea party
Wahhabites, life for the ruling
class becomes more trying.
If there is anything the Deep State requires it is silent, uninterrupted cash flow and the confidence
that things will go on as they have in the past. It is even willing to tolerate a degree of gridlock:
Partisan mud wrestling over cultural issues may be a useful distraction from its agenda. But recent
congressional antics involving sequestration, the government shutdown and the threat of default over
the debt ceiling extension have been disrupting that equilibrium. And an extreme gridlock dynamic
has developed between the two parties such that continuing some level of sequestration is politically
the least bad option for both parties, albeit for different reasons. As much as many Republicans
might want to give budget relief to the organs of national security, they cannot fully reverse sequestration
without the Democrats demanding revenue increases. And Democrats wanting to spend more on domestic
discretionary programs cannot void sequestration on either domestic or defense programs without Republicans
insisting on entitlement cuts.
So, for the foreseeable future, the Deep State must restrain its appetite for taxpayer dollars.
Limited deals may soften sequestration, but agency requests will not likely be fully funded anytime
soon. Even Wall Street's rentier operations have been affected: After helping finance the tea party
to advance its own plutocratic ambitions, America's Big Money is now regretting the Frankenstein's
monster it has created. Like children playing with dynamite, the tea party and its compulsion to
drive the nation into credit default has alarmed the grown-ups commanding the heights of capital;
the latter are now telling the politicians they thought they had hired
to knock it off.
The House vote to defund the NSA's illegal surveillance programs was equally illustrative of the
disruptive nature of the tea party insurgency. Civil liberties Democrats alone would never have come
so close to victory; tea party stalwart Justin Amash (R-MI),
who has also upset the business community for his debt-limit fundamentalism, was the lead Republican
sponsor of the NSA amendment, and most of the Republicans who voted with him were aligned with the
tea party.
The final factor is Silicon Valley. Owing to secrecy and obfuscation, it is hard to know how much
of the NSA's relationship with the Valley is based on voluntary cooperation, how much is legal compulsion
through FISA warrants and how much is a matter of the NSA surreptitiously breaking into technology
companies' systems. Given the Valley's public relations requirement to mollify its customers who
have privacy concerns, it is difficult to take the tech firms' libertarian protestations about government
compromise of their systems at face value, especially since they engage in similar activity against
their own customers for commercial purposes. That said, evidence is accumulating that Silicon Valley
is losing billions in overseas business from companies, individuals and governments that want
to maintain privacy. For high tech entrepreneurs, the cash nexus is ultimately more compelling than
the Deep State's demand for patriotic cooperation. Even legal compulsion can be combatted: Unlike
the individual citizen, tech firms have deep pockets and batteries of lawyers with which to fight
government diktat.
This pushback has gone so far that on January 17, President Obama announced revisions to the NSA's
data collection programs, including withdrawing the agency's custody of a domestic telephone record
database, expanding requirements for judicial warrants and ceasing to spy on (undefined) "friendly
foreign leaders." Critics have denounced the changes as a
cosmetic public relations move, but they are still significant in that the clamor has gotten
so loud that the president feels the political need to address it.
The outcome of all these developments is uncertain. The Deep State, based on the twin pillars
of national security imperative and corporate hegemony, has until recently seemed unshakable and
the latest events may only be a temporary perturbation in its trajectory. But history has a way of
toppling the altars of the mighty. While the two great materialist and determinist ideologies of
the twentieth century, Marxism and the Washington Consensus, successively decreed that the dictatorship
of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the market were inevitable, the future is actually indeterminate.
It may be that deep economic and social currents create the framework of history, but those currents
can be channeled, eddied, or even reversed by circumstance, chance and human agency. We have only
to reflect upon defunct glacial despotisms such as the USSR or East Germany to realize that nothing
is forever.
Throughout history, state systems with outsized pretensions to power have reacted to their environments
in two ways. The first strategy, reflecting the ossification of its ruling elites, consists of repeating
that nothing is wrong, that the status quo reflects the nation's unique good fortune in being favored
by God and that those calling for change are merely subversive troublemakers. As the French ancien
régime, the Romanov dynasty and the Habsburg emperors discovered, the strategy works splendidly for
a while, particularly if one has a talent for dismissing unpleasant facts. The final results, however,
are likely to be thoroughly disappointing.
The second strategy is one embraced to varying degrees
and with differing goals, by figures of such contrasting personalities as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle and Deng Xiaoping. They were certainly not revolutionaries
by temperament; if anything, their natures were conservative. But they understood that the political
cultures in which they lived were fossilized and incapable of adapting to the times. In their drive
to reform and modernize the political systems they inherited, their first obstacles to overcome were
the outworn myths that encrusted the thinking of the elites of their time.
As the United States confronts its future after experiencing two failed wars, a precarious economy
and $17 trillion in accumulated debt, the national punditry has split into two camps. The first,
the declinists, sees a broken, dysfunctional political system incapable of reform and an economy
soon to be overtaken by China. The second, the reformers, offers a profusion of nostrums to turn
the nation around: public financing of elections to sever the artery of money between the corporate
components of the Deep State and financially dependent elected officials, government "insourcing"
to reverse the tide of outsourcing of government functions and the conflicts of interest that it
creates, a tax policy that values human labor over financial manipulation and a trade policy that
favors exporting manufactured goods over exporting investment capital.
Mike Lofgren on the Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight
All of that is necessary, but not sufficient. The Snowden revelations (the impact of which have been
surprisingly strong), the derailed drive for military intervention in Syria and a fractious Congress,
whose dysfunction has begun to be a serious inconvenience to the Deep State, show that there is now
a deep but as yet inchoate hunger for change. What America lacks is a figure with the serene self-confidence
to tell us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that have
nothing more to offer us. Thus disenthralled, the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with
surprising speed.
[1] The term "Deep State" was coined in Turkey and is said to be a system composed of high-level
elements within the intelligence services, military, security, judiciary and organized crime. In
British author John le Carré's latest novel, A Delicate Truth, a character describes the
Deep State as "… the ever-expanding circle of non-governmental insiders from banking, industry and
commerce who were cleared for highly classified information denied to large swathes of Whitehall
and Westminster." I use the term to mean a hybrid association of elements of government and
parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without
reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.
[2] Twenty-five years ago, the sociologist
Robert Nisbet described
this phenomenon as "the attribute of No Fault…. Presidents, secretaries and generals and admirals
in America seemingly subscribe to the doctrine that no fault ever attaches to policy and operations.
This No Fault conviction prevents them from taking too seriously such notorious foul-ups as Desert
One, Grenada, Lebanon and now the Persian Gulf." To his list we might add 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan
and Libya.
[3] The attitude of many members of Congress towards Wall Street was
memorably expressed by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the incoming chairman of the House Financial
Services Committee, in 2010: "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and
my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."
[4] Beginning in 1988, every US president has been a graduate of Harvard or Yale. Beginning in 2000,
every losing presidential candidate has been a Harvard or Yale graduate, with the exception of John
McCain in 2008.
[5] In recent months, the American public has seen a vivid example of a Deep State operative marketing
his ideology under the banner of pragmatism. Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates - a one-time
career CIA officer and
deeply political Bush family retainer - has camouflaged his retrospective defense of military
escalations that have brought us nothing but casualties and fiscal grief as the straight-from-the-shoulder
memoir from a plain-spoken son of Kansas who disdains Washington and its politicians.
[6] Meanwhile, the US government took the lead in restoring Baghdad's sewer system
at a cost
of $7 billion.
[7] Obama's abrupt about-face suggests he may have been skeptical of military intervention in Syria
all along, but only dropped that policy once Congress and Putin gave him the running room to do so.
In 2009, he went ahead with the Afghanistan "surge" partly because General Petraeus'
public relations campaign and back-channel lobbying on the Hill for implementation of his pet
military strategy pre-empted other options. These incidents raise the disturbing question of how
much the democratically elected president - or any president - sets the policy of the national security
state and how much the policy is set for him by the professional operatives of that state who engineer
faits accomplis that force his hand.
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Another attribute of the "Deep State" is that is highly nepotistic. Entry into it relies on
connections rather than skill. Many positions within it exist simply to provide suitably lucrative
work for the children of the ruling class.
Nisswapaddy
Lofgren has certainly provided a good overview of the situation, although what he postulates
is by no means original thinking. However, it is particularly heartening to have this analysis
come from a fellow who could easily have sold his soul like David Petraeus, to name just one
in an endless line of the well connected who have cashed in. Yet I believe our situation is more
dire than even Lofgren suggests. As the philosopher John Ralston Saul characterized it, we have
undergone a coup d'etat in slow motion and now live, not in a constitutional democracy but 'Democracy
Inc.' (described in detail in a book by the same name by Prof. Sheldon Wolin). LIke Lofgren,
neither of these thinkers sees some carefully contrived conspiracy at work. It is merely the
inevitable result of following a rigid ideology that allows unfettered corporate capitalism to
have its way unopposed and essentially unregulated. Now that massive corporation have taken control
of all the levers of power (as Lofgren summarizes above) it will be very, very difficult for
'the people' to take them back. Remember what Upton Sinclair observed over 100 years ago:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him NOT
understanding it."
I give you men like Dave Petraeus, or Jamie Dimon or (fill in the blank) who are subject to
this 'lack of understanding'. They are not co-conspirators, at least not in any active, conscious
sense. However, the corporations they work for, whose only function is to maximize profits for
the benefit of their shareholders and investors and to 'externalize' any and all costs and expenses
possible, are, by definition, sociopaths. And those corporations, run by men and women simply
doing their jobs and going home to a loving family, also have a 'lack of understanding'. When
the corporation you work for has only reason for being, to make a profit 'come heck or high water',
and that corporation and hundreds of others with the she mission, control the executive, congress,
the judiciary and their regulators (who are now required to call the corporations they supposedly
regulate "their customers" ) it doesn't take much imagination to see how we got where we are.
Nor how it is that corporations get what they need, the rest of us be dammed. In short, the 'deep
state' Lofgren shines a light on is much deeper than he indicates. And it will take more than
spats between large corporations to bring it to an end.
William Jacoby
Good essay but everybody should know this by now. In the next elections, in which good candidates
will by definition not be viable because they won't be bankrolled by the Deep State, we must
use the alternative media to coalesce around a few non-negotiable demands. Things like prosecuting
Clapper for lying, immediate prohibition of the intelligence community's revolving door, nationalization
of companies like Booz Allen, creation of public banks as suggested by Ellen Brown and nationalization
of banks too big to fail, a student loan debt strike, and a constitutional amendment overturning
Citizens United. Failure to grant these demands must be met with withdrawal from the two-party
system; go Green or go Libertarian, whichever you prefer, but put a monkey wrench in the system.
Keep using the alternative media, defend them from the Deep State, educate yourself, network
with the growing numbers of people who are onto the Deep State, or the National Security State,
or whatever you want to call it. But get over talking about how the Constitution is in danger;
it's dead, and if there's anything you liked about it, you'll have to bring it back from the
graveyard. Take action, and support others who do.
cross1242
Unfortunately, I don't see anything changing the Deep State or the government in Washington
until there is some kind of revolution. That revolution might be bloodless but nothing guarantees
that. If the Deep State ultimately feels threatened, it will defend itself with all the national
security forces at its command.
Yes. An example. Paper granted PhD's are "promised" suitably lucrative work in academia. So
it's not just corporate.
Time for you to read Foucault's Discipline and Punish and all the rest of his work. Include Virilio, Baudrillard and the rest of Continental Philosophy. Lofgren is just catching up with
a long way to go. Check out Zizek.
Kibik
Look up "Bohemian Club" too.
Peter Michaelson
The fact that an invisible government of elites is in charge of our democracy is entirely
predictable. This political arrangement simply depicts the state of our psychological development.
We have a "Deep State" within our unconscious mind. Our thoughts, desires, aspirations, and beliefs
are all under the influence of this inner "Deep State." Through our ego we're each like a puppet
prince, thinking we're in charge of the show. Both liberals and conservatives have too much invested
in self-image and are afraid of facing what amounts to an inner tyranny. We're too egotistical
and narcissistic; we don't want to be humbled by inner truth. We've produced superficial psychologies
(behavioral, positive, cognitive, etc.) that refuse to face the inner reality. We'll have real
democracy in America and the world when we establish inner democracy. It can be done, and it
needs to be done soon. Start by tossing out all the so-called "scientific psychology" that academic
psychologists are pedaling. Go back to Freud and understand what he's really saying, that we'll
go on generating suffering and self-defeat until we become more conscious of our inner conflicts,
psychological defenses, and entanglements in negative emotions.
Anonymous
As has been mentioned the greatest power is the people. Without the cooperation of the people
none of the pathological behavior described would be possible. The West Coast Strike of 1934
is an example of what can be done. A major way that the 1% control the 99% is through debt. That
control could actually be reversed. What would happen if only 10% of the 99% decided to no longer
to pay their debts? A movement like that could rapidly escalate once people realize that there
is no system that could cope with massive non payment of debt.
What would happen if the pilots, truck drivers, rail workers and dock workers decided to strike?
or the telecommunication workers? All or any of those could be implemented peacefully. No need
to hit the streets. Just stay home and contribute nothing to the deep state. Imagine how long
it could survive the massive non cooperation of the 99%. There is a multitude of possibilities.
Charles Shaver
'How can I thank thee [Bill Moyers], let me count the ways…' and now, too, Mike Lofgren. For
some time I've been thinking that vastly superior aliens from deep space might be holding the
U.S. Government hostage and causing all of the recent illegal, immoral, unconstitutional and
just plain stupid national self-destruction. What a relief to learn it is only too-typical low
IQ humanity that is responsible. Seriously, now, that which gives me the audacity and courage
to comment on these things about which I personally know so little, is my lay acquired understanding
of the basics. To me, in early 2014, these are mere, obvious, matters of the hierarchy of law,
relevant laws and violations thereof.
Ignoring most of the basics and my personal lack of qualifications, suffice it to say for
now that above and beyond the laws of man are those self-evident in nature. Insightfully, since
August of 1975, I have observed not only do the higher laws apply to both machine and man but
the U.S. Constitution is imbedded with them, intentionally or not. So, to finally get to the
point, when Mike Lofgren says 'Groupthink' I think of The Universal Law of Order: "Whenever two
or more individuals unite to form an organization the survival of the organization becomes paramount
to the survival of the individual." and how the Constitution was ignored again. When someone
says 'there's nothing I can do' I think of The Third Rule of Human Behavior: "Self-determination
shall prevail." and how the Constitution was ignored again. Deep space, or 'Deep State,' it 'don't
look good' for us when a vast majority keeps enabling a selfish minority to impose rule. Now,
it will probably take a paradigm shift to fix what's broke but, fortunately, naturally, 'shift
happens.'
http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy
Magnificent article-greatly extends the range of my awareness, since I was just starting to
get a glimpse of this.
It should definitely be noted in the article that Senator Barack Obama pledged and promised
that he would vote against telecom immunity and then he voted in favor of it. That did not auger
well, albeit accurately.
http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy
This is why bloody revolutions happen: the course of last resort would certainly be violence,
which hurts everyone. Elections were supposed to allow an orderly way to bring about change without
violence, but once that mechanism is jammed and will no longer respond, violence is lapping at
our heels.
http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy
I have the same feeling. We thought we had a mechanism that would enable us to respond to
the need for revolutionary change in an orderly way, but that mechanism has been deliberately
broken. That is very, very bad.
Although one must allow that much of this is driven by our deep nature: social animals acting
as social animals do, with all sorts of social-driven instincts and responses. Biology is destiny?
rleighton27
I am not part of the hallelujah chorus greeting this article. Some, if not most of it, smacks
of the apologia of a professional bureaucrat who suddenly has found a conscience. Also, his claim
that President Obama was itching to start a war in Syria, but was only held back from doing so
by "overwhelming Congressional skepticism"…as if that wasn't a daily occurrence to be dealt with
from day one of his tenure. I am convinced that it was part of his strategy from the outset…to
rattle sabres loudly enough to frighten a bellicose Putin, who knew his own military prowess
was hampered by an ill-trained and poorly equipped manpower pool, into making his lapdog Assad
stop playing nasty with his population–and it worked. I agree with much of the article's commentary
about the "boys in the back room" who, in fact, have commandeered the running of the country
out of the hands of elected officials, but condemn it's tone of "it really doesn't matter who's
in charge." It does matter. Articles of this type just encourage voter apathy, and that plays
into the schematic laid out by the Powell Memorandum for the usurping of Democracy, placing it
into the hands of the ALEC/Koch consortium of Plutocratic traitors.
http://leisureguy.wordpress.com Leisureguy
This helps me understand why such an intensive effort is underway to destroy our educational
system and the low value we seem to place on education. I'm thinking of privatization, charter
schools, constant pressure to pay public money to religious schools, defunding of higher education,
closures of departments of humanities and non-applied science and art-that sort of thing. And
now I get it: the last thing the corporate state wants is people "wasting" time and effort on
a bunch of abstract principles and reasoning and critical thinking, especially since it just
causes trouble in the workplace and makes people question orders. Better to do away with that:
turn the focus to what will make the most money, and your problem's solved. And then you can
cut costs-always the imperative-by closing departments that seem to create the most troublemakers.
Two birds, one stone.
Bob Baldock
Peter Dale Scott articulated this first, and has it deeper and darker. Check his website.
Anonymous
As I read the final sentence,
"What America lacks is a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell us that the twin idols
of national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us.
Thus disenthralled, the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed."
I remembered the demise of individuals who fit "figure with serene self-confidence"…..
John F. Kennedy
Martin Luther King
Robert Kennedy
Malcolm X
Paul Wellstone
Joan Harris
It's been awhile since I have had anyone refer to Freud. Never mind the "new age" psychology.
Defenses have always been the problem. In a perfect world we would all live consciously and greed
and prejudices would give way to peace and harmony. In the meantime we must address all the ills,
if for no other reason then to prevent us from becoming complacent. I shall retain a little healthy
cynicism until the world is healthy.
I. Spoke Umbra
Let's be clear about what the "group-think" means when speaking about the NSA:
As someone who was once in the bowels of the NSA beast, I observed a number of disturbing
traits permeate every nook and cranny of the operation. If those traits were applied to an individual,
they would be considered a very serious characterological disorder, perhaps warranting hospitalization:
The groupthink scenario in that place is as toxic as it can get for a human enterprise. It
is a clear and present danger to the security of Democracy as we know it.
Pamela Zuppo
This was no stroke of genius, this was Greenspan, Reagan, and the Bush clan. The better term
for contemporary capitalism is "disaster capitalism" as coined by Naomi Klein. The big question
is what are we to do about this? Do what Kiev has done? Due to "group think", or brain-washing
of the masses who have lost their own control via their televisions, it seems the zombies outnumber
the enlightened. It's clear to me something must be done.
SufferinSuccotash,Pivoting
Randolph "War is the Health of the State" Bourne is also worth a read. Not to mention Jack
London's The Iron Heel. These All-American doods had the National Security-Oligarchy State pretty
much nailed down a century ago. Why people concerned with our current predicament skip over these
Progressive Era radicals in favor of Continental Philosophy (which reminds me of a skimpy breakfast)
is beyond me. I've been watching the emancipatory elements in this country floundering around
for the past four decades now and it's pretty depressing, especially the seemingly chronic inability
to connect with the USA's radical past. No historical knowledge=no sense of history=no political
judgement=the Bad Guys keep on winning.
Ukrainians are my favorite people at the moment and you can bet that their sense of history is
pretty sharp.
This concludes this Sunday morning rant.
Joseph Brant
It is commendable to preserve hope among reformers, but hopes do not solve problems.
While security agencies can serve democracy when better regulated, the failure to regulate
is the result of failed democratic institutions which have not themselves been "vulnerable to
a vigilant public." The dark state invisible power corrupts invisibly, but gold is the invisible
power which had already corrupted the visible institutions.
We need more than a "self-confident figure" to tell us that "national security and corporate
power are outworn dogmas" so that "the people themselves will unravel the Deep State." The "deep…hunger
for change" was deeper in 2008 when so easily destroyed by its self-confident Obama by simply
not mentioning what "outworn dogmas" he would change. The hawkish Hillary is not about to "unravel
the Deep State" and mere self-confidence will not finance campaigns or buy media support to do
more than split the vote of reformers. The media and elections must first be freed of gold, and
the people cannot do that without free media and free elections.
While history is full of surprises, the succession of cold-war fearmongering by global war
upon diffuse "terrorist" backlash and political opposition to half-witted right wing imperialism
does not suggest a passing reaction, nor that any lesson was learned from three generations of
failed military adventures with no relationship to the declared national principles. The cancerous
dark state has grown in proportion to the failure of right wing foreign policy, the failure of
its own rationales. It is the triumphant institution of right wing tyranny as the immune sovereign
over a failed democracy.
Democracy may make further ultimate progress in China than in the US, or may survive only
in micropowers of no interest to the right wing. But we must have faith in the power of the people,
or we lose hope and take no action.
Barbara Mullin
I call it vulture capitalism.
jrdel
Since the People of United States overthrew British ruling class government of our country
and after the revolution, through wise government, and luck we got out from under the thumb of
any rulers whether clerics, nobility, landlords, businessmen, political dictators, banks, etc.
etc. these forces have been working to reestablish their control over our lives and by gradual
steps have done so. Great Americans turned back the tide here and there for a while, Jackson
ended the national bank, T. Roosevelt broke up monopoly corporations, F. Roosevelt supported
efforts for economic democracy, etc.
but the enemies of liberty never rest and always find new ways to undermine it.
So every few generations the People are faced with another fight if they are to keep their liberties.
This time the odds look particularly bad, Enemies stronger, richer, more devious, more insidious,
more corrupt; the People weaker, more divided, confused, distracted. What the hell do we do?
Voting just doesn't do much. Big money floods the media with their point of view. The People,
relatively poorer than ever; don't have enough money to reply.
Petitions, reforms, protests, revolution? All impractical, or impossible (imagine a revolution
in the streets against the power of the U.S. military.) The days when we can grab our muskets
and go out and make a revolution have long gone folks.
I think humanity will have to wait for another age, and another nation to see real liberty and
real democracy in control of the world again.
SufferinSuccotash,Pivoting
Given that back in his day "merchants" were often interchangeable with "bankers" Smith certainly
scored a bulls-eye with that one. The perfect Horrible Example in the 1770s was the East India
Company, which couldn't govern Bengal without trashing its economy and couldn't keep off the
financial rocks either. Eventually the British government put the Company on a shorter leash
and still later the Company lost its monopoly over East Indian trade. But one short-term measure
to bail out the Company was to give it a monopoly over selling tea to the dumb colonists over
in America. Oops. That was a real "tea party", not some bogus affair staged by geezers in funny
hats.
SufferinSuccotash,Pivoting
Of course. I spent quite a few years rationalizing and pretending that Everything Was Pretty
Much OK In These Here United States myself. The problem with being a history teacher–at least
in this case–is that the past, which as William Faulkner famously said wasn't only not dead but
not even past, can catch up with you. This country is paying and will continue to pay pretty
heavily for decades of folly which anyone with a sense of history could have predicted at least
40 years ago.
joanne
We have had millenia to "cage the beast", tame the beast, train, heal, and/or defang the beast.
Predatory behavior is mediated, never extinguished. The Deep State is both institutionalized
predation and paradoxically, a grotesque attempt to protect itself from itself.
Anonymous
The ideology is hinted at throughout the article. Capitalism; The premise that money is a
form of commodity and the winner is whomever has the most. Unfortunately money is a contract
and while such notional promises seemingly can be manufactured to infinity, through the creation
of the other side of the ledger, debt, their underlaying value is dependent on the increasingly
precarious solvency of those taking on that debt. It is what is referred to in hindsight as a
bubble. If you want to see the future of the US in about fifty years, it will likely be in the
states and regions.
J Timothy
The US military-intelligence-industrial aparatus is filled with loyal American patriots who
love this country and have sworn to uphold the US Constitution.
Unfortunately, they don't seem to understand that the system is extremely expensive and is impoverishing
the middle class of America. We have nine air craft carrier groups while the next closest military
has just two. Air craft carriers are incredibly expensive.
In my opinion, the next revalation to hit the mainstream media will be that SOME of the covert,
clandestine, black budget projects have been financed via securities fraud. They've done it before.
Arms for hostages, Hmong drug running in Vietnam, etc, are examples of this. Catherine Austin
Fitts has also made a great point that HUD, of all agencies, has funded some black budget procurements.
Clearly, either the CIA or the NSA are at the center of the cabal. So, what is the justification
for all of this secracy? What is soooo important that the adult eagle scout christians of America
can't tell us? What could it be? Terrorism? Russians? Soverign citizens? Shoe bombers?
Here is where i will lose most people over 50 years old. IN MY OPINION, a the core of the
military industrial aparatus and its wall street enablers is a desperate race to achieve near
technological parity with….(pregnant pause) (dramatic pause) other entities, species, e.t. collectives,
etc, who are visiting sol 3 (earth). This effort is extremely expensive and involves spending
trillions of dollars covertly to build spacecraft and weapons systems based on both advanced
human originated technology and also technology from the reverse engineering of recovered alien
vehicles.
Many people belive that securities fraud funds this effort. It sounds crazy, but, YES, building
trillion dollar weapon systems and spaceships is at the core of the secrecy cult. Nothing else
makes sense. What else could possibly require siphoning trillions out of the US economy? Many
many authors are written on the subject and it is most definitely NOT a joke. Yes, Bill, lets
ask the awkward questions.
Is there a secret space program funded via securities fraud? Have we received help from ET
visitors?
One man who asked the awkward question was Congressman Steve Schiff of New Mexico. He asked
the Congressional General Accounting Office to inquire about the alleged Roswell alien craft
recovery. He got the USAF to give us a third story – (first was a disc, second a weather baloon
and third was project mogul) This all took place in the mid 90's.
He was only about 50 yrs old when he caught agressive skin cancer. He resigned from congress
and was dead soon after. He was 51.
aTomsLife
I disagree that Mr. Lofren's article provokes apathy. It sheds light on the duopoly that is
the two-party system and encourages voters to seek an alternative, namely a more libertarian,
decentralized form of government.
"Overwhelming Congressional skepticism" to Syria included party-line Democrats as well: Unlike
the usual D vs. R bickering, it was D's and R's forced to contradict the military industrial
complex. It was a powerful moment.
Syria proved the American people - and perhaps only the American people - are capable of muzzling
the Deep State. The only reason we didn't intervene there was because constituencies throughout
the country stood united, not because of potential international condemnation. The irony of Putin's
victory is that he achieved it because he had the backing of the American people. He morphed
into our de-facto representative.
Even for the plutocrats, Putin represented the the lesser of two evils. It would have been
a catastrophic loss of face to have to admit that D.C. remains beholden to the American people
when, united, we're unwilling to follow the script.
Until there's meaningful campaign finance reform, "it really doesn't matter who's in charge."
That's the simple truth. But it's a reason to become more engaged in politics, not less.
J Timothy
One of the problems with dealing with the intelligence services is that they have people embeded
within the media to get their point of view across. So, when Moyers talks about asking "Awkward
Questions" he underestimates how difficult this is.
Ed Bernays and Walter Lippman were the gentleman geniuses who showed us that marketing and
propaganda could be used to manage public opinion without limits.
Yes, lets ask the awkward questions. What is so important to the military-industrial-complex
that it needs to siphon, literally, trillions of dollars out of the US economy?
One man asked an awkward question. His name was Congressman Steve Schiff. After he asked his
question, he died of agressive skin cancer. He was 51 years old. Sure. It cold have been coincidence.
But he was the only one asking awkward questions at the time and he was the only one who got
agressive skin cancer. Meanwhile, the CIA's top spooks like George HW Bush and Kissinger are
still alive into their 90's. Go figure.
http://daybrown.org Dale H. (Day) Brown
Mother Nature bats last. When we look at the list of empires crashed because bad weather ruined
crops, we see it includes all of them. People will put up with appalling corruption- until they
are hungry. The Deep State has not picked up on the risk of unusual weather on agriculture, altho
the price of crop insurance rose dramatically. Agribusiness will do fine with govt checks, but
people cant eat insurance.
Part of the problem is that ag policy is set to reduce the cost of the hobby operations of
politicians, like Bush's ranch, but failing to support the backbone of American agriculture,
the family farm. The average age of farmers now is over 60, and because of land speculation by
friends of elected representatives, the next generation cant afford to buy farms. The result
is land owned by absent aristocracy and worked by men whose only interest is their immediate
benefit and not the condition of land to be inherited by sons.
Another of the many reasons we need a Gnu Party not run by lawyers.
Thomas Milligan
Can't blame you for feeling ripped off. You have been. We all have been, except for those
in the very top income brackets. Lofgren does a pretty good job of detailing the forces that
have perpetrated the heist. I've come to call it The Money; it includes the actors Lofgren details,
plus billionaire types like the Koch brothers and Richard Mellon Scaife, plus the mainstream
media (even much of PBS, unfortunately), which has become the Ministry of Propaganda for The
Money. All Is Well. The USA Is Number 1. The Government Is Keeping Us Safe from Terrorism. Buy
More Stuff. Whistleblowers Are Traitors. The Economy Is Recovering. Buy More Stuff. If Things
Aren't Getting Better for You It's Because You're a Loser. So Buy More Stuff.
Don't romanticize the '50's too much. The discontent that exploded in the 60's was just under
the surface even then. To the extent that it was "better" then it was because the prosperity
of the nation *was* more broadly shared. A single "breadwinner" (usually Dad) could feed a family,
with enough left over to save for old age, and Mom was available to nurture the kids. Do you
know *any* families for whom that could be true today? And the mainstream media was populated
by actual journalists rather than mouthpieces for The Money who look good in suits and understand
what their owners want said. Bill Moyers, obviously, is an exception to this rule. One of the
few.
I'm surprised you're not angry. You have every reason to be.
Thomas Milligan
Mr. Lofgren does a pretty good job of detailing the forces that have perpetrated the sad parody
of self-government into which our nation has devolved, but he left out a couple. I've come to
calling the whole thing "The Money." It includes the actors Lofgren details, plus billionaire
types like Scaife and the Koch brothers, plus the mainstream media (even much of PBS, unfortunately),
which has become the Ministry of Propaganda for The Money and the so-called "Washington Consensus."
Where once we had journalists, now we have (with the almost-sole exception of Bill Moyers) pretty
people who look good in suits and like to be on TV, reading the scripts they're given.
Anonymous
Well, that's rather a 'rose colored glasses' view of the Tea Party given their current platform
position. While I agree there are some redeeming qualities – not because I deem them to be but
because they do contribute to the discussion – But, by-n-large the solutions offered by the Tea
Party platform will only serve to weaken any hopes of salvaging the Democracy. One such example
is this meme that 'all Govt. is bad' which only someone disingenuous would suggest does not prominently
inhabit the TP. Another would be the position on so called 'entitlements'. Yet another would
be the Tea Party backing of the likes of Ted Cruz or Rand Paul who adopt a position on health
care that is antithetical toward a robust Democracy. (And spare me the notion that private enterprise
provides better health care etc. – it's simply untrue and there's no evidence to support these
fictions.).
One has to examine a few things about the Tea Party – It is quite clear why individuals such
as the Koch brothers have gone to great lengths to fund the Tea Party because it is the entrenched
Plutocrats and Corporate elite who benefit the most from a weakened Govt. Many TP members see
their quality of life eroding and have chosen to go after the wrong entity why? Well, those reasons
are numerous – for some it is fear, for others racism, others an inability to grasp the weight
of their decisions, etc. and Irrespective of their reasons the actions of the party, quite ironically,
will only strengthen the grasp of the very problems you wish to suggest they will address. While
a nice sentiment to feel the Tea Party could work with others the reality is much different.
Anonymous
Wow, how do you create such a canvas of revisionist history? I also found it quite tragic
that you espouse 'we need to stop this R vs L' dichotomy but you make every effort to assault
the left – exclusively. While that would be with merit if it were true (indeed both parties have
played a role in where we now sit) it becomes quite another matter when viewed against, oh idk,
the backdrop of reality. A.) Historically it is regulation that keeps corporate interests in
check and deregulation promotes the 'crony capitalism' you mention. It's hysterical to assume
the inverse. B.) Progressive policies have, again in reality, led to the greatest moments of
growth and prosperity in this country. I"m sorry you don't believe those facts. And, why didn't
you mention the inequality gap on steroids since Reagan? or the Bush tax cuts that benefitted
the richest Americans? Or the subsidization of big pharma. and big oil? Both parties have no
interest in representing people without money and every incentive not to. But, don't prattle
on this nonsense about the dangers of progressivism. it's ill-thought and smells of ideological
belief hungering to trump facts and history; it smells.
Anonymous
It is quite disheartening and the road forward most uncertain. I'm fairly confident those
you allude to will not act from a position of reason and evidence that is fact based. I cannot,
for the life of me, imagine circumstances in which those guided by fantasy, belief, and hate
(one or all) will shift ideological positions and address the problems that inhabit this country
by the corporate state. Individuals like Ted Cruz, Jamie Dimon (more subtly), the Koch brothers
are gifted in their cunning ability to take advantage of these, what Thom Hartmann calls 'low
information voters' – I've little reason for optimism and plenty of evidence for pessimism without
hope.
Anonymous
After reading this all I can say God help us. I think I can speak for millions of Americans
who grew up in a different country. We use to believe that hard work, play by the rules and everything
would work out for the Middleclass American. All could share in the American dream. Those beliefs
are not what I hear anymore. Apathy and fear are rampant..I fear for the country my children
with inherit.
fenway67
yeah, i don't think that is his main point. it's the corporations and the banks that have
infiltrated and that is the fault of both sides of the aisle. The author notes that the bipartisan
divide is mostly noise obscuring the bigger picture.
fenway67
i am hopeful that firstlook.org will be a source of honest journalism. Scahill, Poitras, Greenwald
and Taibbi are real journalists working toward finding the truth.
Anonymous
Wars forced us into debt slavery to the Big banks that financed them, thus we are slaved to
the NWO BANKS and corporations Federal Reserve Banks buys and owns most of our debt, they are
international now We are controlled by the bankers and the secret NWO financial network running
the governments of the world. Everything trickles down from these taskmasters. Follow the money
and everything is controlled by where it leads. Globalization, one financial system running the
world into their vision of one world government controlled by their big money. They been ruling
us for a long time now. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM would fix us election process and would scare
them knowing they can't put their bag men in office anymore.
Anonymous
So you believe the blame for big government lies only with the liberals? Give me a break.
Here are just four Presidents who expanded Government. They are named Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and
Bush. Flaming liberals to you I would assume.
John Gregor
Looking forward to odering some of those books. Have read all Foucault's books. The author
wrote quite a nice essay about contemporay American politics. Our majot export seems to be Dollars,
like manure they have some value, but I imagine alot of the people who are getting them are not
entirely happy
Anonymous
I saw Mike on c-span Sunday and enjoyed his comments, and now reading this piece I have trouble
with a GOP former congressional analysis troubled about how the govt is working or not working
beginning in 2009.
As with many of former GOP legislators or analysts never do they dig deeper into the underlying
problems that cause the congress to not work. Mentioning the Deep State reminds me of Washington
Post investigation exposing the 2nd govt in DC. It's where all the retired legislators or lost
elections legislators, the congressional staff, the retired military generals go. They pop up
in media (tv, radio, newspapers) spewing out a talking point for their respective 2nd govt think
tank in DC. C-span is a major platform that they use, and 99% of them promote some corporation
dealing with the 1st govt.
Too bad we don't see the name tags of the corporations they represent. Now that we have citizens
united we're back into the age of the Robber Barons.
Andrew Kloak
This insightful essay shows that Silicon Valley is not be what it claims to be. Neither is
Wall Street or the massive build-up of federal government power around Washington, D.C.
The article also alludes to the notion that these companies in Silicon Valley are waking and
trying to resist Deep State regime. California can't save American society. We are only 12% of
the entire population. Plus, they don't want to, they have to answer to shareholders. Profit
is the highest good for companies and government. They want influence and money.
All this is like marionette theatre. James Clapper from the NSA used misdirection when reporters
started to zero-in on the scale of the deception and breach of trust last Fall. Enormous change
is just ahead but not without enormous turmoil. People intuitively know that national security
and corporate power are worn out dogmas.
There is an urgency to all this. Many of these people in these positions of power have no
soul. It doesn't have to be this way, it just is. I think they want it this bad because they
profit and garner influence when it is this ineffectual.
The biggest changes are within anyway. We have to go deeper in ourselves. That shift in consciousness
is already underway. The confluence of forces will sweep away these external constructs. The
hidden factors not discussed in the article are the unconscious forces (emotion). Once people
are more aware of the light and darkness in themselves things will open up. There is dynamic
tension (a good thing) in each person. Self-awareness, integrity and connection to others will
change everything.
This article makes interesting connections to something that is hidden in plain sight. It will change.
richard anderson
I have been giving the political system another chance since Vietnam. Each time we have an
election I hear some good things. But when these people are in office they change. When Ralph
Nader ran for office he was kept out by various means and not allowed to debate. The system is
rigged. This talk of voting for the right person is not going to cut it. With the problems this
deep and the protection that has been set up to keep this system in place there is NOT a way
to change it. In other words voting will not work. Something more is needed. Demonstrations don't
work either. Just look at how long the Vietnam war was protested and when Bush stumped for invasion
of Iraq. They didn't care. Resistance may be the answer.
Anonymous
Rothschild family made their banking trillions beginning from financing Napoleon's wars up
until now. Their family owns media houses, governments, etc and their influence knows no bounds.
You will never see their family listed on Forbes richest people lists because they own the media
and do not want to see their names or advertise their wealth. The Bankers truly own the world
and War debt was the fastest way to do it.
Anonymous
lol. good comment and link.
I will be interested in seeing what First Look does, but I really don't trust the bazillionaire
who is starting it up – or at least his motives. Once a plutocrat, always a plutocrat. I predict
it will start like Arianna Huffington's HuffPo, initially game changing and valuable, then slowly
just another click generating tabloid profit machine with a bubble like mentality forced on contributers,
moderators and commentors alike. Time will tell.
Ellie
We have all this information, but nothing ever comes of it! No one goes to jail The laws are
changed to help the criminals . We still have a two party system which is a joke. Unless people
are hungry and cold and willing to die for a cause nothing is going to change in this country.
J.G. Sandom
We have become almost as much a plutocracy as our former Cold War nemesis, Russia. Tech, Big
Oil and Wall Street oligarchs, combined with the military-industrial complex (which Eisenhower
tried to warn us against) collude (in spirit, if not in actual boardrooms) to keep the people's
power in check via libertarian deregulation, union-busting, Citizens United (and other activist
SCOTUS rulings), privatization of the Intelligence Community (IC), the opiate of digital media
that pushes the idolatry of money & all things celebrity to distract us, and our collective fear
of terrorism (hence our perpetual war footing). This is what my forthcoming novel, 404, is all
about-not just how IP tech is invading our lives, but how this invasion is a metaphor for the
larger invasion. (HAL2, in my book, IS what Mike Lofgren calls the Deep State.) Wake up, America!
Our country is being stolen from us in plain sight. Thank you Bill Moyers, and thank you Mike
Lofgren for helping to alert the American public. You are 21st century Paul Reveres! Al Qaeda
is less of a threat to America because of some future possible terrorist threat, and more because
the collective American fear it engenders helps the Deep State sink its claws more effectively
into our national flesh.
Anonymous
What rings clear is we now have a non-elected government operating outside our constitutional
government and is purposely gridlocked. Our government and judicial system have been hijacked
and steps must be taken to remove Big Hidden money that is controlling our constitutional government.
Great interview Bill, thanks as always!
Jack Wolf
Mike forgot something. There is a simple fact that rules the deep state, the reformists, and
the declinests, whether they accept it or not: Natural Law. Abrupt climate change can not be
controlled now. To suggest that any of these groups are in control or have the ability to make
substantial change belies what is really going on. From now on, all these groups can only react
and as far as I can tell, today will be the best day of the rest of our lives. It's all downhill
from here and there is irreversible.
Thomas Milligan
Oh, I know about those guys and I love what they do. The trouble is, somehow *their* work
doesn't, as a rule, get picked up, amplified and developed in the mass media the way, say "Watergate"
was back when we had real journalists. Meanwhile every load of BS that comes out of the Heritage
Foundation, Cato et. al. somehow becomes received wisdom. I'm also a bit concerned that by going
off on their own they're setting themselves up to be marginalized and ignored. Trees may fall,
but very few people will hear them.
Thomas Milligan
Somehow your response above… to *my* response… to your original post… got posted under a *separate*
post I offered… scroll down far enough, you'll find your original post & my response.
Can't blame you for wanting to shield your children. The thing is, you can't, neither from
the anger nor from global climate change. I have grandchildren and grieve when I look at them
for the world they're apparently going to inhabit.
One last thing: it's possible… theoretically at least… to have anger without hatred. Anger
at what's been done can be a spur to action… and effective action could be taken while still
treating the perpetrators with the compassion we know all sentient beings deserve. I'm not sure
*I* could manage it because truth to tell I'm not a very good Christian… or Buddhist either…
but it's at least theoretically possible.
Thomas Milligan
Good point about our old nemesis, The Evil Empire.
I always found it ironic that as the Soviet Union was collapsing, the United States was moving
toward one-party rule. You can write the Nov. 5 headline right now: "Republocrats Win Yet Again!"
fenway67
Agreed, the MSM has a vested interest in having their product on the shelf at eye-level and
it's hard for the little guy to buy space in this market. I'll be doing my part by re-posting
and tweeting important stories that they cover and I just hope the quality will get them noticed.
I'm sure the smear campaign against them will begin soon.
fenway67
I wasn't aware of his motives beyond providing a platform for real journalists. What have
you heard? I am hopeful that the high quality work of the people he has hired so far will keep
it in the same company as the Moyers people.
Kenneth Killiany
This is an issue that concerns me greatly actually. Both sides have adopted policies that
have fed it. I find it interesting that you mention Allen Drury, who was my uncle. Al was a dogged
reporter, uncovering, in his day, the Manhattan Project, which he did not report on because of
World War II. Should he have? He never doubted his judgment. However, he was very concerned about
how the State just grew and operated on its won. You can see mentions of it in ADVISE AND CONSENT
and MARK COFFIN, where he discusses the whole public-private daisy chain and how irresponsible
it is. It's true, you can't get drama out of it, but he mentions it, but in PENTAGON, he wrote
a whole book about a bureaucracy can be diverted from what it is meant to do by concerns for
its own prerogatives. A&C and MARK COFFIN have just been re-released, and PENTAGON will follow
next year. This kind of reporting in your article is the kind he admired and it is a great service.
freelance-writer
A.k.a.:Ukraine 2014. Though there are many factors and stake-holders at work in the Ukraine
issue, it behooves the citizenry of all western nations tainted by the same `deep-state' tyranny
to bear witness. It will take bricks against bullets to resolve this global crisis once and for
ever.
Mary Brown
The only terrorists we have to face in the USA are our own government and the ones that government
is purposely importing to continue their reign of fear. Problem is a large part of America is
now well armed and a terrorist would die rather quickly long before any government police forces
arrives.
Len
Most of us frogs are in a pot of water that is getting hotter and hotter and we don't feel
it. As quoted from this essay "After a while, a functionary of the state begins to hear things that, in another context, would be quite remarkable, or at least noteworthy, and yet that simply bounce off one's consciousness like pebbles off steel plate". Replace "a functionary of the state"
with "we the people".
This essay was terrific.
Anonymous
I am worried that the boiling pot will lead to the elimination of Social Security. For years
now politicians been saying it will end to each generation. When it does, a very high percentage
of Americans will be at poverty level. I don't want to be living in American cities when that
happens, crime and robberies will be common place.
Anonymous
Yes, this is not a new development… The funny thing is that Bill Moyers' Iran-Contra era expose
entitled "The Secret Government" actually covers this subject better than the piece we are commenting
on. And iirc, he interviews Peter Dale Scott about the CIA in that report…
Anonymous
There is a world of difference between bailouts and nationalization. I cannot begin to quantify
the folly of calling this system "Marxist" when the party on the left of the two party system
has moved so far to the right as to make Eisenhower seem like Trotsky by comparison.
Anonymous
For Gods sake, not this again. What Banking family who made the bulk of their fortune from
War debt and being worth $500 Trillion dollars are you referring to? Everybody is afraid to print
anything on these influential banking members. Their influence in this world has no bounds. As
we all know Bankers always protect their money and are devising new ways to make more money.
If you naively think that Bankers in this world are Godly benevolent people, you better look
around the state of the world again and formulate a revised opinion. but there you go, I got
my opinion and you have yours and we will respectfully leave it as that. Thanks for your comment!
Anonymous
Last time I looked capitalism is buying and bought our election process. In fact, in the past
the main focus of our government has been on business priorities and concerns. Doesn't look anything
as Marxism to me.
Jimmy Solomon
I read this article and watched your interview. Both are most enlightened. What happened,
however, on the eleventh day of the ninth month thirteen years ago was clearly a result of this
deep state and it is too bad you won't recognize this glaring example of the corruption of which
you write.
Anonymous
"the party on the left of the two party system"
There is little or no difference between the two faces of the party of state power. They use
different words, and then enact the same policies.
Politics is about power, nothing more. There is no "left" or "right", only power.
Antonio Germano
Again, what filibusters? You have provided no examples. Except for the (unfortunately) pathetic
attempts of Cruz, Paul and Lee to derail Obamacare and the recent debt ceiling/government shutdown
(I wish) affair, where has there been any effective Republican opposition to any of Obama's agenda? You are typical of the person who blames one side for our problems, when it's both sides (i.e.,
the government) that is the problem. Both sides are playing their respective constituencies like
a Stradivarius. get over your obsession with partisanship and see the real issue – the whole
system is corrupt and needs to be abolished. Your pining for 'majority rules' is a recipe for tyranny. The filibuster rules were put into
place to prevent temporary majorities from steam-rolling temporary minorities. I think it should
be even harder to pass laws, not easier, so mischief is avoided. I repeat – the State is the enemy of us all. get over blaming one side or the other. You are
being played.
Anonymous
amazing that such a powerful article was written. too bad its several years too late, and
ever so slightly off the mark. you need to let go of the rhetoric of bipartisanship. the DNC
and GOP establishments are both operating on the same basic policies. while they offer crumbs
to their bases, they are both pushing the agenda of the deep state.they are both to blame, and
until people declare that both have no clothes, the powers behind the curtain will continue to
rule.
Anonymous
Thanks, well said.
There's also the "Shallow State" of American campaign consultants like David Axelrod and Mark
Penn who make big money in places like Ukraine and Georgia because the locals assume they wield
influence over their clients in Washington. If American foreign policy became less aggressive,
foreigners wouldn't pay them so much money:
"F]inancialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labor." Yes, "commodifying of labor" thanks to Teddyquiddick pushing the 1965 Hart-Cellers act that began
the importation of million Third World unskilled laborers per year, thanks also to the Deep State
paralyzing all efforts of us, the People, to force our so-called "representatives" to close,
fortify, and defend our borders – to stop the massive flow of scores of millions of illegal immigrants.
Immigration has done more to stagnate and reduce Americans' wages and to destroy what had been
our historically unprecedented middle class affluence and economic-political power. Objective One for those of us who would dismantle the Deep State and restore our democracy is
obvious: Stop All Immigration. Accomplish this by these measures: one, end birthright citizenship
(and thus also end birth tourism); two, abolish State Department power to import refugees and
government funding of NGO's that "resettle" refugees; deport all illegal aliens; impose massive,
draconian fines on employers that hire illegal alien labor. Why are these measures Objective
One? Simple: when we allow our Dear Rulers to displace and dispossess us on our own soil, we
forfeit – we surrender – our power to control our representatives and their appointees and their
wealth transfer from ourselves to foreigners.
Mil
This is just a small list. But it at least provides some of the examples you are asking to
see.
This is not a revelation. Noam Chomsky has been pointing this out clearly for the past 40
years… There a couple public documents that might help explain to the educated class exactly
what has been going in the U.S. for the past 40 years… The Powell Memo written by Lewis Powell
in 71 and the Crisis of Democracy a document publicly published by the Trilateral Commission
in the mid 70's these are both damning omissions by powerful groups that control both the business
world and governments at all levels of governance. These two documents that we know about are
internal look at the dogma of the ruling class.. Neo Liberalism is the term they used but it
sure aint new and it sure aint liberal. It just another way for the ruling class to re-institute
Feudalism.
Anonymous
What you say is essentially true. Fascism by definition is the merger of corporations and
the military. Another amusing quote: "A capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
These Deep State proponents will succeed in fully displaying their stupidity when the global
environment collapses under the weight and consequence of their actions and humanity becomes
extinct. In the meantime, they will be having fun and braying like jackasses as they descend
into the abyss.
Anonymous
What about the level of organization required to create the Trilateral Commission and its
formal takeover of the US executive branch when Carter took office? The majority of the cabinet
(all but one) were Trilateralists in the newly created group of only 300 worldwide members. Trilateralists
were placed in high level international corporate and political positions and this paradigm holds
today. Scholars Antony Sutton and Patrick Wood wrote extensively on this international power
dynamic with its influence now extending to every part of the globe. It was Trilateralist Larry
Summers, former US Secretary of Treasury and Goldman Sachs executive, who was sent to Russia
when it's economy imploded to advise Putin on how to privatize the Russian peoples' state owned
assets leading the to rise of eight powerful oligarchs with internationalist sensibilities, a
very deliberate centralization of capital and a means to control Russian political power players.
From the beginning of the transfer of the US manufacturing sector to China, it became Brzezinski's
model Technocracy, Brzezinski being the a founder of the Trilateralists, Carter's National Security
Adviser, and author of The Grand Chessboard. (reference: Patrick Wood's augustforecast.com) These
actions and the concomitant level of organization goes beyond the Deep State model.
Anonymous
.. if there were no abuses by the IRS, then why did IRS official Lois Lerner plead the fifth
? If my boss asked me to explain possible abuses of power at my job and I pleaded the fifth,
my new office would be on the curb.
Anonymous
The meetings happen in Rancho Mirage and other places for Koch Brothers, and ALEC, etc. They
are the ones paying the Pols and they definitely meet and plan conspiracies to disenfranchise
voters. And, William Pepper wrote a book that reveals the conspiracies within those security
agencies that control pols. It is great the Lofgren is talking about the Deep State. But, to
deny the conspiracies within it is naive. The crashing of the Obama garden party by Robert Gates
associates is a case in point. The Supreme Court ultimately is the last point of call to stop
this Deep State within all the branches. They have judicial oversight, and they are not using
it.
scratphd
The great swamp philosopher Pogo got it right. "I have meet the enemy and he is us." A complacent America.
Christanne
Lofgren: What America lacks is a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell
us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are
outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us. Thus disenthralled,
the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed.
This essay echoes Ivan Illich's "Tools for Convivality," which, although written in the '70s
is even more applicable today. This is not new. Lofgren is an important wedge to cauterize the
deep state and dispell delusions of unending "progress." However, I don't see any evidence for
his assertion that the people themselves will unravel the Deep State. What we've done so far
is just buy a new toy, both literally and figuratively, even when so many of us are going hungry.
Anonymous
Excellent essay. A very good (semi-) insider's look at happenings within the Beltway. However,
my instinct tells me that the real nexus of power doesn't lie there, but that the Deep State
operatives are allowed to continue their game-playing at public expense in order to serve a larger
agenda–the ultimate bankrupting of the US and the ushering in of a new world order which has
been in the making for centuries by the real powers-that-be. Uber-conspiratorial? Maybe, but
I just can't shake the feeling.
The One
There is no doubt that the great american experiment has ended in ruin. There is hope on the
horizon though. Due to technological progression and its rapid increase in power, the very fabric
of society will change. Our social and economic models must change radically due to technological
improvements. There is no end in sight to the technological pace we have been blazing at, and
if there is an end it seems to be distant. The tremendous benefits of creative AI and the automation
of white and blue collar workers must be built into a new social and economic model in which
the benefits are distributed evenly and equally among the peoples of planet earth. Even now,
if we used our technology wisely, we could unshackle large swaths of the labor markets with automated
robots.
The current state of unimaginable corruption which is inflicting the world, not just the US,
is a dying last grasp for air as the oligarchies face a new powerful threat, the connection of
all things. The internet has the power to upend these corrupt power structures which lie at the
heart of society, and thus at the heart of every human life on this planet. Our current economic
model is not situated in reality. I can't say if the market will be up or down tomorrow, but
what I know for certain is that earth is 196.9 million square miles. Which is a finite space.
Not a good place for an economic model which requires economic expansion for survival. The labor
markets will be greatly dis-stressed due to technological displacement. The current scientific
revolution is unlike any that has ever happened on the surface of this planet. Even highly skilled
workers such as surgeons have the capacity to be replaced by highly advanced robots specializing
in surgery. People will see awaken to the fact that this "annoying high unemployment" is actually
the new normal and will only get worse. This REQUIRES a new economic model.
If a business refused to integrate their business with the latest automation technology, a
rival that had enough foresight to not oversee this would drive his competitor out of business.
Then, in our current economic model, that rival that just won the market would reap all the rewards.
BUT, it will also be in the best interest of that company, if in some new economic manner, a
portion of those profits would go into a general citizens fund which would provide all humans
with a basic income. This type of model will be absolutely necessary due to mass unemployment.
This leaves the motive for profit intact which also leads a motive for innovation, creation,
and competition that humans need. With scarcity gone, and universal income for all, the future
will look very very bright for our young human species. The seas of interstellar space beckon.
Anonymous
"…another thing" – yup – if they changed the rule so they could get what they claimed was
their agenda passed, the Reps might have been able to do the same – however the Reps could do
that anyway themselves if they regained power –
In any case, what does that say about a Party that would refuse to advance a decent agenda
just so the other party couldn't advance its own at another date – in essence, cutting off our
noses to spite the Reps face – they could have done what they knew we sent them there to do,
and they refused, hiding behind rules they could have changed – more and more folks are waking
up …
ISTM it oughta be obvious by now that this "struggle" between the Reps and the Dems isn't
about principle or ideology and it certainly isn't about representing us – it is about who gets
to be in charge of handing out the perks and who gets the perks – those in power are the ones
who get both ….
Charles Shaver
Nice to keep learning of a plethora of ambiguous symptoms but, short of too costly general
strikes or domestic insurrection, only voting proved corrupt politicians of both major parties
out of high office every other November will eventually restore legal functionality to the U.S.
Government. So, vote in every general election and vote against those who stray. 'How to know'
one might ask? Simply vote 'out with the old; in with the new,' every time, until we have the
kind of America the Founders prescribed in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
Anonymous
It only depends on your definition of "the US." Yes, a panel of CEOs famously declined Ralph
Nader's invitation to join him in the Pledge of Allegiance, but in the State Department memo
that outlined the policy of containment of the USSR, George Kennan said the vast wealth disparity
between the US and the rest of the world must be maintained, while civil rights and democracy
could be neglected.
By then, the post-World War One idealists who'd joined calls for socialism and one-world government,
to prevent another such catastrophe, had seen things differently once Russia turned Eastrrn Europe
into a barricade against further invasions from the West. They could not bring themselves to
reb against their banker fathers, but they still believed in a one-world government – it would
simply be the government of the United States. The entire world would be brought into the economc
system we ran, no matter what citizens and their elected governments wanted.
During the Cold War, NATO was used to bring European intelligence agencies and militaries
under domnance by the CIA and the Pentagon. Putting ordnance, money and men in place to resist
a Soviet takeover made perfect sense, but it operated in peacetime to keep left-wingers out of
Continental governments. We overthrew an Italian government, for example. Not by ourselves, of
course: the secret "stay-behind" troops were nitorious right-wing fanatics, who could be trusted
to carry out their missions regardless of law, Constitutionality or morality. False-flag shootings
and bombings in public squares and supermarkets killed many innocent civilians and were blamed
on leftist radical groups which had been thoroughly penetrated already anyway. This was to win
public support for stricter security policies and, perhaps, punish citizens for voting in liberal-to-left
governments. This was admitted in the Italian parliament by the Prime Minister in 1990. Operation
GLADIO, as it was called, involved every NATO country. Investigations were promised, but were
aborted or came to mothing.
This is what Putin knows will happen if Ukraine joins NATO, for instance, so don't expect
him to take it lying down. He operates a Russian version.
In the US, a group of Wall Street financiers discussed literally overthrowing FDR in order
to end the New Deal regulatory state, but didn't get past the talking stage. The Senate held
hearings but J. Edgar Hoover declined to investigate becayse "no crime was committed." This is
the same FBI director who opened pressure dossiers on citizens who carried protest signs or wrote
letters to newspapers or the government opposing our war policies, and tried to get Martin Luthed
King to commit suicide.
Note the secrecy surrounding current trade-agreement negotiations, and accompanying high security.
This dates back to the fiaco of the world trade talks in Seattle some years ago, when street
protests neatly brought them to a halt. An Italian citizen was killed during protests against
trade talks in Genoa yeats later.
Anonymous
This was a superb essay–one I have been awaiting for years. One minor addition: there is another
non DOD component to the aforementioned group, which is DOE. Admittedly, it's rather easy to forget about them–but one should not. Ever.
Anonymous
But I really wonder if voting is a sufficient tool for the citizenry to tell the government
what it thinks. Elections are not very frequent, they are deeply manipulated by complex "strategists" (look at
the connection between the now-slowly-debunked gay marriage referenda and the re-election of
Bush Jr). Though I find it tedious and at times inefficient I wouldn't mind being part of a citizenry like
France that literally shuts the country down until the government says "uncle".
Anonymous
I believe the fourth estate and the way the US government interacts with it have a lot to
do with the opacity of the veil I find floating between myself and whatever happens inside the
beltway.
The US government keeps journalists begging for the tiniest crumbs. No one is willing to leak
anything for fear of being caught.
When I asked a friend in the diplomatic corps what was the most striking about his stint in
DC he said the depth at which government officials changed with each new administration compared
to other countries. DC's moving business is booming beyond anything imaginable. This is also
a tidy way to keep a tight grip on "messaging" – a skill each administration seems to get better
and better at.
There is a reason wikileaks has emerged and parody has replaced the stale format of the evening
news.
Charles Shaver
Voting is still an effective tool. Unfortunately, statistically, a majority of manipulated
voters will only dirty their hands to install and re-install soluble Democrats and Republicans
when seeking water tight integrity; insane, by Einstein's definition. Now is well past the best
time to make some real repairs but, perhaps, not yet too late to save a sinking ship. And, shutting
the engine down won't plug the leaks.
Pat Kittle
We Americans are already plenty overcrowded, but Israel lobby billionaires want open borders
and they've paid big bucks to both Republicans & Democrats. So open borders and endless population
growth it is, ecological sustainability be damned.
And don't give me that "anti-Semitic" hooey, I'm just stating facts.
Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Soros, Gelbaum, Adelson, etc., etc., Israel lobby, all of them.
No serious discussion of the "deep state" would ignore that elephant in the living room.
Anonymous
This is not a valid critique. The Deep State serves organized wealth and works to further
increase inequality and social stratification. Thus the Deep State represents entrenched right-wing
power. It is a matter of state capture. Both parties support this consensus and are thus supremely
conservative. The same goes for the media which is owned by these same centers of organized wealth.
Matt P.
It's not a matter of keeping one's mouth shut, but actions speak louder than words. Being
angry and contentious all the time is not the same as being productive about the issues you believe
in. Whenever I see an inequality in the street, on the subway, or at a party I react. I stand
up for the person, I intervene and get involved. The rest of the time I do keep my mouth shut
because there's nothing to say. It doesn't help anyone to spread unhappiness around. In fact
it drains your energy so you're not ready or as effective for the next opportunity.
Sean Kurnow
I get a laugh at people who yell, whine and complain about politicians and party politics….It's
like yelling at a ventriloquist dummy instead of the person controlling it. America became a
plutocracy in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created. Since then, we all know that special
interest groups control almost every aspect of government policy.
Anonymous
I will assume you simply did not understand what I wrote or what 'slouching' wrote – ironic
eh? Lets remove Thom Hartmann from the equation, as it seems to be where you flew off the rails…what
then is your defense of the idiots we allude to?
Anonymous
I well understand the argument about brainwashing – have heard it a gazillion times ….
The "idiots" you refer to – who are these folk? And while the corp media was brainwashing them, what were the rest of us doing? Sitting on
our hands?
Bill Wesley
well for once I have no comment, its not required in that the writer has made the case with
expert precision, I find no flaws, no omissions, no theory or dogma obstructing the writers view.
Its nice to see such well presented intellectual compitance, it allows me to feel relief, I can
take a break since others are seen to be on the ball
FroboseTF
Charles: Voting used to be an effective tool. Unfortunately with the advent of "Electronic Voting Machines"
which must be "Programmed", and leave no paper trail to allow a recount; I fear that if the truth
be known our elections are probably rigged on a regular basis to reflect the will of those in
actual power now.
I believe it was Joseph Stalin who said "It's not who casts the votes that's important. It's
who counts them.
Anonymous
Actually, it was a Mossad (Israeli Intel)/US Intel op. US organized it and funded the Al Qaeda
end of it via Paki intel officer General Mahmoud Ahmed, while the Mossad prepped the US targets
and ran the anthrax mail op. I'm not sure that Mossad didn't dream it up in the first place,
but, whatever the details, Al Qaeda was definitely just a bit player in the op with the real
culprits being our own fearless leaders.
Reuben_the_Red
Winner-takes-all elections (as opposed to proportional representation) and the Electoral College
are inherently undemocratic and present the illusion of voter participation without the danger
of undue voter influence.
Reuben_the_Red
Excellent discussion of the intersection of money, power, and early 21st century technology
in the US today. Food for thought, especially paired with Moyer's recent documentary about ALEC.
One caveat: Paragraph 21 starts out saying, "the Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well
protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change," but in paragraph 22, "there are signs of resistance to the
Deep State and its demands." Paragraph 21 has already made the case that resistance is irrelevant
and impotent in the face of the Deep State apparatus, power/wealth reserves, and democracy-subverting
methodology. And that's probably true. There may be no way to actually extricate the Deep State
from The Superficial State.
We are left in the final few paragraphs with a series of reasons that the Deep State might
reverse course voluntarily, or unravel of its own accord, but in the end what we really need
is "a figure with the serene self-confidence to tell us that the twin idols of national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that have nothing more to offer us": in other words, some kind of charismatic,
messianic Jesus-person, to save us from ourselves. I don't object to the author trying to end
with a hopeful note of optimism, but how would this person reach us with that message? Are there
not already a host of people who have been saying exactly that for decades, from Noam Chomsky
to Angela Davis, from Daniel Quinn to Arundhati Roy, from Mark Twain to John Lennon? Have we
not managed to ignore and disregard a notable and widely-published list of people trying to tell
us that national security and corporate power are outworn dogmas that do nothing to elevate humanity
nor the human condition?
"Thus disenthralled, the people themselves will unravel the Deep State with surprising speed." It seems clear that
we will be forever enthralled with our credit scores and our televised sporting events and other
televised virtual realities until the government of the US actually collapses due to a variety
of currently known and unknown factors (economic, ecological, etc). And that's not gonna be pretty
either. And even then there is the further possibility that in such an event of complete destabilization
(not unthinkable, has happened throughout history, around the world), the Deep State could become
simply The State.
Reuben_the_Red
Agreed. Presumably there is no incentive in the Deep State to undermine the omnipotence of
the Deep State.
There are ways to increase voter participation (non-participation fines and penalties as I
understand Australians are subject to; make voting day a federal holiday or even better a three-day
weekend; give the right to vote back to felons and inmates alike; etc.) but wouldn't we still
be left to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee?
Charles Shaver
I haven't voted for Tweedledee or Tweedledum for President since Ronald Reagan and, since
learning of Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 2012, I don't vote for either for Congress. I'd rather take
a chance on a third, fourth or fifth party unknown, a blank ballot or a write-in candidate than
on another known destroyer from one of the two major parties. Participation alone is not enough;
it has to be informed participation, referenced against the clear, plain and simple language
of the U.S. Constitution. So, how do we get the word out?
Reuben_the_Red
It would have been a very different election in 2012 if the Republican establishment and the
corporate media machine had not colluded to rig the primaries so that Mitt Romney was the nominee,
and not the one that the majority of voting Republicans wanted, Ron Paul, who ran on a platform
that ironically appealed to many leftists, because of his insistence that foreign military interventions
and US global military incursions cease immediately.
It's possible that the realistic threat of a viable third party candidate on the outer fringe
of the left or the right could be enough to force that respective party to yield to those fringe
demands, incorporating those demands into a mainstream platform, more or less like the Tea Party
did with the Republican party in recent years, threatening to take their votes elsewhere.
At the same time, more Americans voted for left wing platforms than right wing platforms in
2000, but due to the winner-takes-all elections, we didn't get a government that was 5% Nader,
45% Gore, 45% Bush, majority leftist reflecting the vote. We got 100% Bush. We got corporate
welfare, tax cuts for the uber wealthy which did not result in higher employment, we got two
decade-long unprovoked foreign wars riddled with war crimes, and we got persistent recession.
Some of these things, if not all of them, would not and could not have happened under a Nader/Gore-led
government. The Deep State expanded massively with the Bush/Cheney administration's complicity.
I wish that it was worthwhile to vote for third-party candidates, but we can expect them to receive
no media coverage, few votes overall despite the possibly broad appeal of their platform, and
in the end it would be irrelevant because of the Electoral College. If I live in Oregon and vote
for Romney my vote is thrown away as surely as if I live in Utah and vote for Obama.
In answer to your question, how do we get the word out, I think the only answer is media ownership.
Our lives are more consumed by media today than ever before in the history of the world, and
all of the media is concentrated in fewer hands, with more consensus among those few hands, than
ever before.
Charles Shaver
It would be a very different election every time, and nation, if the majority would simply
quit believing in the now defunct two-party system, corporate owned media and an extremist capitalist
system that values the gains of the uber wealthy over the lives and limbs of workers and the
poor. It's okay to question the status quo, ignore corporate media, do independent research,
vote totally independent of family tradition and elect questionable strangers (as opposed to
proved bipartisan failures) to defund the Deep State. Need a little more direction? Review the
Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. It pretty well sums it all up in rather clear, plain and simple
English, if you keep in mind that not just millionaires, billionaires and multi-national corporations
(allegedly) are 'people.' Good conversation.
jeffries
Mike Lofgren wrote the essay. Bill Moyers was allowed to interview him. PBS has its hands
tied by the "deep state" too. If you doubt this talk ask PBS why they pulled the plug on the
Koch Brothers expose.
jeffries
The "deep state," like a parasite, will continue until its host is dead. My guess is they
are in a state of panic-their host is on life support. The party is over- the rest of the world
has had enough of the U.S. The petro dollar has been broken. The dollar will be dethroned as
the world reserve currency and the torch will be passed to China no later than 2018. The players
of the "deep state" will not be able to infiltrate and latch onto this new host and so they will
fight to the death, more accurately our sons and daughters death, to keep the U.S. in its position.
Resist war is all we can do and not buy into the steady stream of propaganda that will be bombarding
us at every turn.
Hatha Sunahara
I haven't read all 328 comments so far, but I just wonder if anybody has picked up on the
reason the deep state has developed. I think it's development stems from the evolution of the
United States from a Republic into an Empire. No empire can exist with restrictions on its power
like those put on the United States by the Constitution. So, instead of discarding the Constitution,
the United States was subsumed into an 'extra-constitutional government'. Of course, nobody bothered
to tell the people of the United States that their power had been usurped by a lawless Imperial
overlord. Responsibility for that egregious oversight can be laid to the mainstream media, which
is owned by the owners of the extra-constitutional government. These are the global media corporations.
If you view politics this way, it explains a lot of things. Empire relies on it's military
power and the acceptance of its money. Anyone who does not accept the empire's money generates
hostility from the empire. The empire wages war without any declaration of war. The extra constitutional
government allows that. The empire cannot tolerate privacy because that would allow people to
plot against the empire without interference. So the empire puts everyone under surveillance.
The empire cannot tolerate resistance or disobedience, so it develops a police state to instil
fear and obedience in people. There are many many more examples of how empire rules America and
usurps the US government–which exists for the people of the United States. Americans, and the
people of the other countries in the world understand this viscerally, but are unable to express
this in coherent thought because their language has been corrupted by the forces of empire. Mike
Lofgren doesn't make this connection because iit violates the rules of political correctness.
Everyone's career is tied to strict adherence to political correctness, and
Anonymous
And many of the voters have been brainwashed by the 5 or 6 corporations that control the media.
Fear entertainment.
Anonymous
After I read Top Secret America I came to the conclusion that since 9/11 Homeland Security
has become so incredibly humongous and so political it will keep growing until the US is bankrupt.
The was the goal of Benladen. Europe did not fall for it be we did.
Anonymous
Some contemporary books Blackwater, Bloodmoney, and especially Confessions if a Economic Hit
Man. Also Top Secret America.
Charles Shaver
I think a better name for 'Homeland Security' is 'elitist money addict insecurity.' And, it
and treasonous corporate media propaganda will keep growing until we as an injured people finally
'Just say NO!' to the 'perpetraitors.' Thanks for commenting, above and below.
Anonymous
There is a small very readable book written by John Perkins named Confessions of an Economic
hit Man. This is the way the Corporatocracy has used the IMF and World Bank to take over the
assets of less developed countries. And if their leaders do not agree to go along well then read
what happens to them.
Anonymous
In many states felons are legally allowed to vote if they have served their sentences. And
if they moved to Florida their vote was legal. But Jeb Bush broke the law and did not allow their
vote to count in the Bush/Gore election. The Republicans also paid a fortune to a company named
Choice Point to scrub the polls. They also did this in the latest election for Governor. How
can they get away with these tactics? The tactics that are being used in North Carolina lately
are extremely difficult to counteract.
Anonymous
Funny (not ha ha) when I try to tell friends what is going on within Homeland Security (the
redundancy, the extreme size of it and the number of government and private buildings all around
the Washington suburbs) they respond by stating that they approve of all this. Homeland security
is so political that this state if affairs will be sucking up our tax dollars forever.
Neil Kitson
"These men, largely private, were
functioning on a level different from the foreign policy of the United
States, and years later when New York Times reporter
Neil Sheehan read through the entire documentary history of the war,
that history known as the Pentagon Papers, he would come away with one
impression above all, which was that the government of the United States
was not what he had thought it was; it was as if there were an inner
U.S. government, what he called 'a centralized state, far more powerful
than anything else, for whom the enemy is not simply the Communists but
everything else, its own press, its own judiciary, its own Congress,
foreign and friendly governments – all these are potentially
antagonistic.
It had survived and perpetuated itself,' Sheehan
continued, 'often using the issue of anti-Communism as a weapon against
the other branches of government and the press, and finally, it does not
function necessarily for the benefit of the Republic but rather for its
own ends, its own perpetuation; it has its own codes which are quite
different from public codes.
Secrecy was a way of protecting itself, not
so much from threats by foreign governments but from detection from its
own population on charges of its own competence and wisdom.' Each
succeeding Administration, Sheehan noted, was careful, once in office,
not to expose the weaknesses of its predecessor. After all, essentially
the same people were running the governments, they had continuity to
each other, and each succeeding Administration found itself faced with
virtually the same enemies.
Thus the national security apparatus kept
its continuity, and every outgoing President tended to rally to the side
of the incumbent President.
"Out of this of course came a willingness to use covert operations; it was a
necessity of the times, to match the Communists, and what your own
population and your own Congress did not know was not particularly
important; it was almost better if they did not know…"
David Halberstam The Best and The Brightest
Charles Shaver
Very typically, you appear to be better informed and better read on some aspects of our failed
and failing nation-state than I. Admittedly, I don't have all the answers. Briefly, though, respective
of all you cite, I find the vast majority of Americans just don't want to be burdened any more
with good citizenship (e.g., election statistics). Most recently, another symptom of the underlying
problem was highlighted when the billionaire owner of a mere commercial (as opposed to 'professional')
basketball team in a society that tolerates abject poverty and illegal war was severely chastised
and sanctioned for only elitist, racist remarks. Summarily, let me say that my America took a
big turn for the worse when the 'Pied Piper' was bribed to play the National Anthem. Nope, not
'ha ha' funny, at all. And, I don't know whether to dread or rejoice the day when the coerced
laughter finally ends, and the music dies.
Anonymous
During the 2nd Bush administration I started to notice all the books listed in the Washington
Post book section about his administration. After awhile I thought maybe I should start reading.
The first page turner was one by Bob Woodward about the lead up to the Iraq war. It showed me
that we were not getting truth from the media so I kept on reading books. First about Iraq-Fiasco,
The man who got is into the war Amad Chalabi, Blackwater, Bloodmoney and many others. I keep
telling people to read more but they choose not to. They are either working too hard or if retired
playing too hard. They just want to be spoon fed and are addicted to outrage entertainment. I
continued my reading on economics, finance, climate change and understand much more than I did
before. Keynes vs Hyeck explains the history of the two economic theories. Also how the shift
to the right happened during The Reagan and Thatcher administrations. Age of Greed explains how
a few very greedy men influenced congress to repeal laws and pass laws in their favor. Tim Flannerys
book The Weather Makers explains Climate change. And there are too many books written on income
disparity and the danger to democracy. What is happening is out of control and a nightmare. I
don't think people understand that when a government service for the commons is privatized it
becomes a corporation with lobbyists that influence Congress and that we taxpayers must pay their
employees at a much higher rate. Like the army contractors, prisons and so on. People do not
put on their thinking caps. Sorry for the rant.
Charles Shaver
Interesting, impressive; different paths, one destination; better a rant than a sell-out or
surrender. Beware of putting too much faith in the opinions of others, myself included. We all
are products of our past and there is a natural tendency for the adult progeny to emulate the
parent; the student to mimic the teacher; the reader to quote the author. I find the U.S. Constitution
is the best source of information about how America should function but I don't hear or see much
of that from any of the so-called 'experts.' If electrical engineers treated Ohm's Law like authors,
bankers, government, lawyers and the 'people' treat the U.S. Constitution, you'd be reading this
in script on parchment by candlelight, if at all. And, don't let me discourage you; where I fail
you may succeed. Let reason prevail. Thanks for the stimulating conversation.
Anonymous
Yes we all have the tendency to read whatever validates our worldview. I read Gretchen Morgensterns
book named Reckless Endangerment about Fannie Mae. Saw her talk on Cspan book channel. Needed
to get to the bottom of that mess. Jim Johnson was and still is a very shady character. It is
strange however that the Republicans reduced the entire 2008 recession down to two sound bites
Fannie Mae and the CRA (I think that is the acrynom) for the program to stop the redlining. No
one knows anything about the history and purpose of Fannie Mae and it's original purpose until
Johnson got his hands on it. If one has critical thinking one can sift out the truth. I just
cannot believe that people will believe a sound bite without any hesitation.
Charles Shaver
Been 'deep thinking' a lot more about the Deep State but, without yesterday's lost credentials
or celebrity (good or bad), there's not much I can presently do. One clever sound-bite might
do the trick but none I've composed and tried so far have caught on. Still, probably, is tomorrow.
Anonymous
I actually thought of a really good sound bite and communicated it to the White House. No
one took me up on it. Wish I could remember what it was. If you have any you could try. But they
are not very confrontational.
Charles Shaver
I liked candidate Obama's words but never voted for him, because he already belonged to one
of two already proved dysfunctional major political parties. Writing the Obama White House and
even getting a few generic replies while watching him fail the office, too, I do not regret 'wasting'
my vote on a 'green' third party candidate. After rereading The Anatomy of the Deep State, today,
I'm sure I could read more and probably phrase things better but am still confident in my decades
of working-class experience-based conclusions and suggestions.
sorval
"Land of the Free, Home of the Brave"
has become
Land of the "Free", Home of the "Brave".
johnnyomaha
Privatization of the US constitution to serve the elite…..
http://www.rrstevens.net/ Robert Stevens
… OR is it "Land of the Greed, Home of the Knave" -- Let's sing it all together before the next Football Game and Circus: ♫ "o'er the Land of the
Greed …" ♫
Anonymous
Where's the who, what, when, where, and why? Collected everyday simple observations will awaken
one to the existence of a higher controlling entity. No more problem identification or descriptions,
thank you very much. We need 1) facts and 2) solutions.
unheilig
Lofgren gives both. Did you read the article? Confirmation is easy enough too: all you need
is a browser and a few hours searching off-off-lamestream information sources.
Jocelyn Hawley
To both dn7904 and Charles Shaver, I read your back and forth discussion and realize that
I so crave that type of intelligent, informed and aware discussion within my interactions in
my daily life, but none can really exist. Most people are so concerned with the outcomes of the
game, or fantasy football, or the latest t.v. series, and how on earth to pay rent and other
minutia. The little bit of news comes from prime time networks like Fox, NBC and CNN and they
think they know what is happening in the world, but don't actually want to know what is really
happening. The trick to an article like this one, is not yet how we change the problem, but how
we get people to notice, be aware and to care. That is the real question and the first- most
prominent problem to be solved.
Anonymous
I think there are more creative ways for the citizenry to communicate their discontent than
to wait four years for the next highly-funded election. I remember being in an international conference and the minister of Health from a major developed
country came on stage just days after making a very unpopular move. One person stood up and simply
turned her back on the Minister, then another, then a dozen, then the whole auditorium of major
players in the scientific community. It made headlines. I resent the fact that a movement like MoveOn now just asks me for money like all the other PAC's.
They used to send out flyers and have photos posted of people all over the country holding the
same flyer. What comes to mind is that we remain the developed country in which the fewest people take vacation.
How can we possibly stop and think about creative democracy? Ironically the revolutionary thought
that was the spark that set off the flames of this country came from the leisure class who had
plenty of time to think and write about things like freedom and liberty.
Charles Shaver
Thank you for prodding me to do some additional 'Deep Thinking.' The harm is done. Thanks
to the apathetic and/or ignorant majority of a voting minority, the balance of power in the U.S.
has now been transferred from the left hand of organized crime to the right hand, for the next
two years. At least the majority is consistent in its failure to self-govern by voting, and voting
wisely.
While (if) still allowed, voting wisely is the only reasonable solution. Creative protesting
(e.g., 'occupy' them, pass out flyers, shout them down, turn your back or throw them a shoe)
means nothing when the final vote is counted to determine who actually makes and enforces the
rules. Not omniscient or perfect, either, I'm open to suggestions but with very little to work
with after several decades of too-typical abuse, betrayal, exploitation and oppression, served
in the pseudonyms of loyalty, patriotism, sacrifice and service. If mere reasoning worked then
Bill Moyers and 'company' would have already solved most of the major problems. Don't let me
discourage you, though, keep on with your own deep thinking.
John Schoneboom
Two flaws jump out at me from this otherwise rather good and useful article. The first is
that Mr. Lofgren implies that the Deep State is mainly a Republican thing. In the picture he
paints, it's the Republicans who want to pay the national security state, while the poor hapless
Democrats just want to increase social spending. Similarly, he makes excuses for Obama in footnote
7. (Presidents are surely mostly puppets, but Obama's 2008 FISA vote as Senator betrays his own
predilections well enough.) At best, this is the farcical veneer of Deep State Theatre. I suspect
Mr. Lofgren knows better and didn't mean to imply otherwise.
Secondly, government shutdowns and budgetary problems may be an inconvenience to the Deep
State, but no accounting of the Deep State is complete without figuring in off-the-books revenue
from the global drug trade. International partnerships and oil interests also help diversify
the income stream nicely. There are many billions feeding this thing that have nothing to do
with the US budget.
It's also somewhat criminal not to name-check Peter Dale Scott in this subject area. But I'm
nitpicking. I'll not bother criticizing the piece for not addressing Deep State ties with terrorism,
that kettle of fish deserves its own barrel. Like I said, nice piece, useful, well done, thank
you.
Douglas Harris
does no one see there is a reason for the immense defense spending as America becomes #2 in
world economy and the dollar might be replaced as the reserve currency? The Chinese own enough treasury paper to close the American economy, alone or with several willing
partners. BUT…America even as a declining economic dictator will still have the arms to maintain
world control…
Anonymous
I had no real a-ha moment reading this well written piece. Nothing jumped out at me as something
foreign or unknown. Instead, I had the sense of deja vu, the kind of deja vu I'd rather not have.
All these things have been known if the consumer of this good piece has been paying attention
to the not-mainline press. What is so exciting about this is the writer put all the information
in one place and drew out the connections that weren't always so obvious. Though Mr. Lofgren
paints a somewhat plausible picture of how this State may rather suddenly crumble, I'm a bit
dubious.
What seems missing are the global links among many of these actors especially the oligarchs
reach and connection to many things terrorism. What I'm saying is that I'm not terribly optimistic
that a leader will come along who is sufficiently unbeholden to the state and who can remain
un-co-opted and call this state for what it is thus raising our fellow Americans sustained interest
and desire to see through the mess it will take to overthrow this Deep State.. In any case, thanks
so much for such a thoughtful and creepy picture.
Anonymous
None of this is news. A President who cared could smash the Deep State in, probably, nine
months. The key lockhold the Deep State has at the moment is on the nomination process, which
is used to filter out any Presidents, and most Congressional nominees, who show signs of independent
thought. They've been doing this since Reagan (Carter was the last President with independent
thought; Reagan was ideal, being an actor with Alzheimer's and so not thinking much at all.)
There are two ways this can play out: either they lose their lockhold on the nomination process,
or the entire system is discredited and we get a revolution.
The Deep State is actually very fragile due to their fundamental incompetence. But they're
quite capable of wrecking our existing system, at which point there will be an opening for a
Caesar or a Napoleon or a Lenin who *is* competent. That is the true danger moment. The worst
scenario is revolving-door coups, such as Mexico suffered for decades in the 18th and 19th century.
Anonymous
The American Empire is, however, in decline phase. You can identify that by the inability
to conquer territory and the slow loss of territory from the edges. The peak of the American
Empire was actually in the late 19th century… A collapsing empire follows a weird trajectory. Many comparisons have been made to the Roman
Empire. That worked out poorly.
Anonymous
You could also read the much older "War is A Racket" by Smedley Butler.
The IMF/World Bank scam was working for a while. It doesn't work any more: South American
countries simply reject it. And the US has no power to muscle South American countries any more;
I'm not quite sure how they managed to become immune to US military intervention, but they have.
They have had about 200 years of trial and error in figuring out how.
Now, the rest of the world just needs to copy the South American model and the US IMF/World
Bank scam becomes untenable.
Anonymous
Proportional representation is critical, but I haven't figured out how to get anyone to pay
attention to it. Even at the local level, where the deep state has no traction because it's paying
no attention.
Anonymous
Thankfully the fight against electronic voting machines is already pretty strong. This is
something people understand viscerally and this is a key plank for whatever party is going to
dethrone the Rs & Ds. Basically, if electronic "voting" machines are delegitimized (as they should
be), this means people will actually fight for their paper ballots…
Anonymous
I think you're wrong about how most Americans will react. The levels of disillusionment are
very, very high now and you can measure them in polls.
Just before the Civil War, we saw the same dynamic: most of the country was completely disillusioned
about the "slavocracy", as they called the corrupt US government dominated by slaveholders. This
led to the election of Lincoln, the destruction of the Whig Party, and finally, the Civil War.
This is the sort of situation we have now. The Deep State can't win; it will be smashed as
Americans unite behind a Lincoln-like figure. The only questions are when this will happen, and
more importantly *what comes next*. Things are wide open after that happens: Sun Yat-Sen led
(unfortunately) to Mao.
jeffries
Well it will be interesting how the Greece situation plays out. It seems strange we don't
hear much or read much in main stream media about it. They are challenging the status quo. At
first the banks gave them until the 28th and then cut it to 10 days. It would be in everyone's
best interest if this was the beginning of the end for the EU. Diffused power is the best power.
If the EU fails we won't be pressured into a union with Canada and Mexico. I think that was the
plan of the global deep state. Aggregate nations into regions and then larger regions and then
it would not be such a jump to global government.
Anonymous
"….. Americans sustained interest…." Lack of interest is the real killer of all empires.
America's "Madisonian institutions," namely, the Congress, the presidency, and the courts have
been supplanted by a "Trumanite network" of bureaucrats who make up the permanent national security
state. National security policymaking has been removed from public view and largely insulated
from law and politics.
Notable quotes:
"... national security policy is determined largely by "the several hundred managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints." The president, congress and the courts play largely a symbolic role in national security policy ..."
"... You can read a Harvard National Security Journal article that outlines Glennon's argument at this link: http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf . The paper is not an especially easy read, but I found it to be well researched and – for me – persuasive. ..."
"... National Security and Double Government ..."
"... "Glennon shows how the underlying national security bureaucracy in Washington – what might be called the deep state – ensures that presidents and their successors act on the world stage like Tweedledee and Tweedledum." ..."
"... "In our faux democracy, those we elect to govern serve largely ornamental purposes, while those who actually wield power, especially in the realm of national security, do so chiefly with an eye toward preserving their status and prerogatives. Read this incisive and richly documented book, and you'll understand why." ..."
"... U.S. national security policy is in fact conducted by a shadow government of bureaucrats and a supporting network of think tanks, media insiders, and ambitious policy wonks. ..."
"... "is that the United States government has enduring institutional interests that carry over from administration to administration and almost always dictate the position the government takes." ..."
"... And now IMO the DEEP STATE is about to DEEP SIX the Career military in the US as it organizes violence and the SURVEILLANCE STATE outside the ARMED FORCES. ..."
"... My short answer is that Government of the people, by the people, and for the people [the Lincoln formulation] probably expired with the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki! ..."
"... I think we could make as much of the supine legislature that lends weight to Glennon's argument as he does the "permanent" executive agency security apparatus. If they're to be properly responsive to public will, executive agencies need better written laws. ..."
His answer: national security policy is determined largely by "the several hundred managers of
the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting
the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints." The president, congress and the courts play largely a symbolic role in national security policy, Glennon claims.
You can read a Harvard National Security Journal article that outlines Glennon's argument at this
link:
http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf.
The paper is not an especially easy read, but I found it to be well researched and – for me
– persuasive.
His book adds more analysis to the argument, using (from Graham Allison's
Essence of Decision) the rational actor model, the government politics model, and the organizational
behavior model. Glennon extends that framework by discussing culture, networks, and the myth of alternative
competing hypotheses. The book is richer, in my opinion. But the core of Glennon's position
is in the paper.
In National Security and Double Government, Michael Glennon examines the continuity
in U.S. national security policy from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. Glennon
explains the lack of change by pointing to the enervation of America's "Madisonian institutions,"
namely, the Congress, the presidency, and the courts. In Glennon's view, these institutions have
been supplanted by a "Trumanite network" of bureaucrats who make up the permanent national security
state. National security policymaking has been removed from public view and largely insulated
from law and politics. Glennon warns that leaving security policy in the hands of the Trumanite
network threatens Americans' liberties and the republican form of government.
Some blurb reviews:
"If constitutional government is to endure in the United States, Americans must confront the
fundamental challenges presented by this chilling analysis of the national security state." Bruce Ackerman
"Glennon shows how the underlying national security bureaucracy in Washington – what might
be called the deep state – ensures that presidents and their successors act on the world stage
like Tweedledee and Tweedledum." John J. Mearsheimer
"National Security and Double Government is brilliant, deep, sad, and vastly learned
across multiple fields–a work of Weberian power and stature. It deserves to be read and discussed.
The book raises philosophical questions in the public sphere in a way not seen at least since
Fukuyama's end of history." David A. Westbrook
"In our faux democracy, those we elect to govern serve largely ornamental purposes, while
those who actually wield power, especially in the realm of national security, do so chiefly with
an eye toward preserving their status and prerogatives. Read this incisive and richly documented
book, and you'll understand why."Andrew J. Bacevich
"…Michael Glennon provides a compelling argument that America's national security policy is
growing outside the bounds of existing government institutions. This is at once a constitutional
challenge, but is also a case study in how national security can change government institutions,
create new ones, and, in effect, stand-up a parallel state…." Vali Nasr
"Instead of being responsive to citizens or subject to effective checks and balances,
U.S. national security policy is in fact conducted by a shadow government of bureaucrats and a
supporting network of think tanks, media insiders, and ambitious policy wonks. Presidents
may come and go, but the permanent national security establishment inevitably defeats their efforts
to chart a new course…."Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer
I've spoken to three people I consider to be members of the "shadow national security state."
One person said Glennon's argument is nothing new. The second told me he's got it exactly right.
The third said it's even worse.
and imo only the nuclear priesthood rivals the deep state but not exactly part of it yet its
original source!
like the mayan priests only those in it know how accurate this book is in its analysis!
and a congress marches on in complete ignorance!
Mike Mealer, January 21, 2015 @ 7:48 pm
Great article. Read it a few months ago. I didn't know whether I should feel more secure or
afraid. Looking the items I highlighted and a few standout.
"The dirty little secret here," a former associate counsel in the Bush White House, Brad Berenson,
explained, "is that the United States government has enduring institutional interests that
carry over from administration to administration and almost always dictate the position the government
takes."178 P34
Its cohesion notwithstanding, the Trumanite network is curiously amorphous. It has no leader.
It is not monolithic. It has no formal structure. P32
The maintenance of Trumanite autonomy has depended upon two conditions. The first is that the
Madisonian institutions appear to be in charge of the nation's security. The second is that the
Madisonian institutions not actually be in charge. P34
Public opinion is, accordingly, a flimsy check on the Trumanites; it is a manipulable tool
of power enhancement. It is therefore rarely possible for any occupant of the Oval Office to prevail
against strong, unified Trumanite opposition, for the same reasons that members of Congress and
the judiciary cannot; a non-expert president, like a non-expert senator and a non-expert judge,
is intimidated by expert Trumanites and does not want to place himself (or a colleague or a potential
political successor) at risk by looking weak and gambling that the Trumanites are mistaken. So
presidents wisely "choose" to go along. P70
John Comiskey, January 22, 2015 @ 7:14 am
Civic Education 101
Glennon laments as did Justice Souter, the pervasive civic ignorance of the citizenry. Democracy requires an informed and engaged citizenry. The recent and ongoing debates about the role the police in society raise similar question
and doubts about our social contract and governance for the 21st century.
Where to from here?
A national conversation about civics and K-12 civic education.
What is the proper role of citizens in society?
What is the proper role of our polity?
Again interesting thread and comments. The use of the term "Trumanite" is unfortunate and totally
inaccurate IMO! Truman reluctantly signed the National Security Act of 1947 to resolve the documented
failures of Jointness between the Army and Navy in WWII [the Secretary of War and the Secretary
of the Navy--Stimson and King]! Truman was personally opposed to the establishment of the CIA
for many good reasons.
What is the real failure is the creation of the Nuclear Priesthood which largely failed to
guard its secrets from other Nation-States and individuals and the warping into the DEEP STATE
[the better term than DOUBLR GOVERTNMENT]!
And now IMO the DEEP STATE is about to DEEP SIX the Career military in the US as it organizes
violence and the SURVEILLANCE STATE outside the ARMED FORCES.
A close study of the overturning of the ALIEN AND SEDITION Acts of 1798 which destroyed chances
for a second term for John Adams and created the first real Presidential Election in the USA,
the Presidential Election of 1800, which brought into officer Jefferson, but almost brought Aaron
Burr to real power.
Study of James Madison so-called VIRGINIA RESOLUTION opposing the ASA is fully warranted. Too
bad John Yoo did not know this history.
I need to mention that I did read the article and listened to the Cato Institute Panel.
The Panel presentations might lead one to argue that Double or nothing or the DEEP STATE what
difference does it make past, present, or future?
My short answer is that Government of the people, by the people, and for the people [the
Lincoln formulation] probably expired with the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Perhaps not
but until argued and proven otherwise that is my conclusion! Perhaps wrong and hoping so!
Jack, January 24, 2015 @ 2:47 pm
A fascinating and needful argument, though I think we could make as much of the supine
legislature that lends weight to Glennon's argument as he does the "permanent" executive agency
security apparatus. If they're to be properly responsive to public will, executive agencies need
better written laws.
The Critical Infrastructure Protection Act or CIPA, which passed the house in 2014, would,
"require the Assistant Secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate to: (1) include
in national planning scenarios the threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events…" (emphasis
mine). The national planning scenarios were rescinded in 2011, making CIPA either a very easy
or very hard law to execute.
Likewise, the Biggert-Waters flood insurance reform act of 2012 altered regulatory definitions
for "substantial damage" and "substantial improvement" by misunderstanding the way field damage
assessments are performed under the National Flood Insurance Program.
Which means, I suppose, that we need more able legislators…which may be unlikely if more Americans
don't know Publius from Curly.
"... The difficulty we have in the economics profession, I fear, is a great deal of herd instinct and concern about what others may say. And when the Fed runs their policy pennants up the flagpole, only someone truly secure in their thinking, or forsworn to some strong ideological interpretation of reality or bias if we are truly honest, dare not salute it. ..."
"... But it makes the point which I have made over and again, that all of the economic models are faulty and merely a caricature of reality. And therefore policy ought not to be dictated by models, but by policy objectives and a strong bias to results, rather than the dictates of process or methods. In this FDR had it exactly right. If we find something does not stimulate the broader economy or effect the desired policy objective, like tax cuts for the rich, using that approach over and over again is certainly not going to be effective. ..."
"... Economics are a form of social and political science. And with the political and social process corrupted by big money, what can we expect from would be philosopher kings. ..."
"... The interconnectedness of the global system with its massive and underregulated TBTF Banks, the widespread and often fraudulent mispricing of risk, all make cause for a financial system to be fragile. In this thinking Nassim Taleb is far ahead of the common economic thought as a real systems thinker. The Fed is not a systemic thinking organization because they are owned by the financial status quo, and real systemic reform rarely comes from within. ..."
"... So Mr. Baker, rather than looking for the bubble, lets say we have a fragile system still disordered and mispricing risk, with a few very large banks engaging in reckless speculation, mispricing risk for short term profits, manipulating markets, and distorting the processes designed to maintain a balance in the economy. Rather than hold out for a new bubble as your criterion, perhaps we may also consider that the patient is still on full life support after the last bubble and crisis. Why do we need to find a new source of malady when the old one is still having its way? ..."
"... A new crisis does not have to happen. This is the vain comfort in these sorts of black swan events, being hard to predict. But they can be more likely given the right conditions, and I fear little will be done about this one until even those who are quite personally comfortable with things as they are begin to feel the pain, ..."
"... neither Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously. ..."
"... If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario. It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation. This seems like a much more plausible story... ..."
I like Dean Baker quite well, and often link to his columns.
On most things we are pretty much on the same page.
And to his credit he was one of the few 'mainstream'
economists to actually see the housing bubble developing, and call it out. Some may claim to have
done so, and can even cite a sentence or two where they may have mentioned it, like Paul Krugman
for example. But very few spoke about doing something about it while it was in progress. The
Fed was aware according to their own minutes, and ignored it.
The difficulty we have in the economics profession, I fear, is a great deal of herd instinct and
concern about what others may say. And when the Fed runs their policy pennants up the flagpole, only
someone truly secure in their thinking, or forsworn to some strong ideological interpretation of
reality or bias if we are truly honest, dare not salute it.
Am
I such a person? Do I actually see a fragile financial system that is still corrupt and highly levered,
grossly mispricing risks? Or am I just seeing things the way in which I wish to see them?
That difficulty arises because economics is no science. It involves judgment and principles,
and weighs the facts far too heavily based upon 'reputation' and 'status.' And of course I have none
of those and wish none.
But it makes the point which I have made over and again, that all of the economic models are faulty
and merely a caricature of reality. And therefore policy ought not to be dictated by models,
but by policy objectives and a strong bias to results, rather than the dictates of process or methods.
In this FDR had it exactly right. If we find something does not stimulate the broader economy
or effect the desired policy objective, like tax cuts for the rich, using that approach over and
over again is certainly not going to be effective.
Economics are a form of social and political science. And with the political and social
process corrupted by big money, what can we expect from would be 'philosopher kings.'
The housing bubble was no 'cause' of the latest financial crisis. More properly it was the tinder
and the trigger event. The S&L crisis was just as great, if not greater. Why then did it not bring
the global financial system to its knees?
The interconnectedness of the global system with its massive and underregulated TBTF Banks, the
widespread and often fraudulent mispricing of risk, all make cause for a financial system to be 'fragile.'
In this thinking Nassim Taleb is far ahead of the common economic thought as a real 'systems thinker.'
The Fed is not a systemic thinking organization because they are owned by the financial status quo,
and real systemic reform rarely comes from within.
I see the same fragility which existed from 1999 to 2008 still in the system, only grown larger,
global, and more profoundly influencing the political processes.
The only question is what 'trigger event' might set it spinning, and how great of a magnitude
will it have to be in order to do so. The more fragile the system, the less that is required to knock
it off its underpinnings.
And a crisis is not a binary event. There is the 'trigger' and the dawning perception of risks,
and the initial responses of the political, social, and regulatory powers.
There is no point in debating this, because the regulators and powerful groups like the Fed are
caught in a credibility trap, which prevents them from seeing things as they are, and saying so.
So Mr. Baker, rather than looking for the bubble, let's say we have a fragile system still disordered
and mispricing risk, with a few very large banks engaging in reckless speculation, mispricing risk
for short term profits, manipulating markets, and distorting the processes designed to maintain a
balance in the economy. Rather than hold out for a 'new bubble' as your criterion, perhaps we may also consider that the
patient is still on full life support after the last bubble and crisis. Why do we need to find
a new source of malady when the old one is still having its way?
I think if one exercises clear and open judgement, they can see that we have stirred up the same
pot of witches brew that has made the system fragile and vulnerable to an exogenous shock, and has
kept it so.
A new crisis does not have to happen. This is the vain comfort in these sorts of 'black swan'
events, being hard to predict. But they can be more likely given the right conditions, and
I fear little will be done about this one until even those who are quite personally comfortable with
things as they are begin to feel the pain,
The problem is not a 'bubble.' The problem is pervasive corruption, fraud, and lack of meaningful
reform. The 'candidate' is the financial system itself, with its outsized hedge funds and the
TBTF Banks with their serial crime sprees and accommodative regulators in particular.
And if one cannot see that in this rotten system with its brazenly narrow rewarding of a select
few with the bulk of new income, then there is little more that can be said.
Neil Irwin, a writer for the NYT Upshot section, had
an interesting debate with himself about the likely future course of the economy. He got the
picture mostly right in my view, with a few important qualifications.
"First, his negative scenario
is another recession and possibly a financial crisis. I know a lot of folks are saying this stuff,
but it's frankly a little silly. The basis of the last financial crisis was a massive amount of
debt issued against a hugely over-valued asset (housing). A financial crisis that actually rocks
the economy needs this sort of basis.
If a lot of people are speculating in the stock of Uber or other wonder companies, and reality
wipes them out, this is just a story of some speculators being wiped out. It is not going to shake
the economy as a whole. (San Francisco's economy could take a serious hit.)
Anyhow, financial crises don't just happen, there has to be a real basis for them. To me the
housing bubble was pretty obvious given the unprecedented and unexplained run-up in prices in
the largest market in the world. Perhaps there is another bubble out there like this, but neither
Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least
give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously.
If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario.
It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation.
This seems like a much more plausible story...
Anyhow, a story of slow job growth and ongoing wage stagnation would look like a pretty bad
story to most of the country. It may not be as dramatic as a financial crisis that brings the
world banking system to its knees, but it is far more likely and therefore something that we should
be very worried about."
"... Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here . In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities. ..."
Supporting the Kurds will lead to more terrorism per Erdogan. But it is fine and dandy to
support ISIS terrorists and to be at war with Syria. Turkey will soon be a failed state:
The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:
–Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the
political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
–Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video
"Syria: Wolves of the Valley": "Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in
to the fighting when necessary."
–Turkey's intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities
of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they
made at least
2,000 trips to Syria.
–Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as
reported by Seymour Hersh
here. In May 2013,
Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish
authorities.
–Turkey's foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded
plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording
of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.
–Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked
Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances
for injured fighters. Turkey
shot down
a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers
inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely
untrue.
–Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
"... Wage slavery is VERY different from chattel slavery. The danger of ignoring that difference is that it obscures the intimate connection between the two, which is the legal institution of private property. ..."
"... The Roman law of property derived by analogy from conditions of slave ownership. Owning land is an analog of owning slaves. ..."
"... Born in debt. Live in debt. Die in debt. The one thing they got right: human slavery is so distasteful we can't do it openly anymore. But wage slavery is just fine, especially debt peonage. No one can complain if you get yourself into debt, just if someone else puts you there. ..."
"... I hate my job. I am de facto a day laborer, delivering items as and when my boss tells me to. As a former university professor, this is a hard blow. But to say I and 99.9% of the population are coffled is pure nonsense. My situation is lousy. But comparing what the black slaves went through with what I am going through is like saying the internment camps which held the Japanese-Americans were the same as the death camps in Nazi Germany. One was bad, the other indescribably worse. Not all evils are identical or commensurate. ..."
"... Any adequate reading of the history of the Civil War will show that the 11 Confederate States destroyed themselves out of lust to extend slavery to the northwestern states. They had through "compromises" extended slavery to the states south of Missouri already. The threat of urbanization and immigration creating enough free voters to outvote their 1.6 people gerrymanders terrified the Southern powers-that-be to the point of pre-emptive war. Read the Secession declarations of each state; believe them for what they say, not the subsequent reunion-period histories. ..."
"... The economic benefits of the internal slave breeding industry were matched by the political benefits; they could try to outbreed the Northern increase through immigration and make profits off sales to western states. ..."
"... David Graeber's book (Debt: The first 5000 years) convincingly relates debt directly to slavery, real slavery. Creditors ("masters") rigged the game, took all their debtors assets, and when there was nothing left for them to take, they took them, as slaves. Or their wives, daughters, sons. I know, ancient slavery was different in some respects; slaves could earn their way out or be "redeemed" by a family member or other creditor. (And there was the Jubilee year – I have to read Michael Hudson on that someday.) I can accept that American chattel slavery was distinct and diabolical, but it was an intense form of something that seems to have been with us, humanity, for a long time. ..."
"... The westward expansion after the War of 1812 and the closure of the overseas slave trade in 1808 created the conditions for the internal slave breeding industry with its generation of roving coffles and slave traders, it major slave markets, a good many of which have been preserved, and its new forms of finance and legal entities. ..."
"... Yes, Graeber's book is excellent on this point: "Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped from one's context, and thus from all social relationships that make one a human being. Another way to put this is that the slave is, in a very real sense, dead." ..."
"... The important point. The United States of America (Lincoln) did not want to fight. The abolitionists were a minority. The Southern media (newspaper editors) freaked out like to media shock jocks did over the election of Barack Obama. Unlike this time around, at least so far, the Southern states were stampeded by their elites into seceding; the state legislatures and governors were part of those elites. In the midst of the tension Edmund Ruffin, a pro-secessionist rabble-rouser from Virginia went to Charleston SC, and with the help of military school Citadel and Arsenal cadets, and SC militia, conducted a coast artillery attack on the closest military installation – Fort Sumter. And reactions escalated, very much like the diplomatic environment after the the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And they escalated because the Southern hotheads wanted war. ..."
"... Regarding the coffle, it seems this is early capitalism's answer to the "Trail of Tears" and the famous "Bataan Death March". Then again, maybe it's not "early" capitalism at all….I'm thinking of Malaysia and the TPP. ..."
"... Many years ago I visited a small slavery museum out in the cotton fields somewhere around Memphis - I forget which side of the river it was on. It was in an old house that might be found anywhere, but more likely in a suburb than far out in the cotton fields, with no other house in view. Even the nearest line of trees was hundreds of yards away. In the largest room they had a lot of chains with large, heavy links, bigger than you would think would be necessary to hold even a very active human being. ..."
"... Slavery in the US was rather tame and short lived in comparison to the slavery practiced by the Muslims and Africans themselves. ..."
"... It was not until 1960 that slavery was outlawed in Saudi Arabia although it may well continue to this day. To really understand large scale slavery we need to go back to the origins of the Muslim movement. ..."
"... Hi Lambert, the book that first put the scope of the slave trading and breeding industries into context for me was The World That Made New Orleans by Ned Sublette. It's a fascinating and terrible account and if I recall correctly, describes some of the slave breeding operations carried out by Thomas Jefferson. ..."
… About a quarter of those trafficked southward were children between eight and fifteen, purchased
away from their families. The majority of coffle prisoners were male: boys who would never again
see their mothers, men who would never again see wives and children. … The only age bracket in
which females outnumbered males in the trade was twelve to fifteen, when they were as able as
the boys to do field labor, and could also bear children. Charles Bell, forcibly taken from Maryland
to South Carolina in 1805, recalled that
The women were merely tied together with a rope, about the size of a bed cord, which was
tied like a halter round the neck of each; but the men…. were very differently caparisoned.
A strong iron collar was closely fitted by means of a padlock around each of our necks. A chain
of iron, about a hundred feet in length, was passed through the hasp of each padlock, except
at the two ends, where the hasps of the padlock passed through a link in the chain. In addition
to this, we were handcuffed in pairs, with iron staples and chains, with a short chain, uniting
the handcuffs and their wearers in pairs.
As they tramped along, coffles were typically watched over by whip- and gun-wielding men on
horseback and a few dogs, with supply wagons bringing up the rear… The captives were not generally
allowed to talk among themselves as they tramped along, but sometimes, in the midst of their suffering,
they were made to sing. The English geologist G. W. Featherstonehaugh, who in 1834 happened upon
the huge annual Natchez-bound chain gang led by trader John Armfield, noted that "the slave drivers…
endeavour to mitigate their discontent by feeding them well on the march, and by encouraging them"
- encouraging them? - "to sing 'Old Virginia never tire,' to the banjo. Thomas William
Humes, who saw coffles of Virginia-born people passing through Tennessee in shackles on the way
to market, wrote; "It was pathetic to see them march, and to hear their melodious voices in plaintive
singing as they went."…
From the first American coffles on rough wilderness treks along trails established by the indigenous
people, they were the cheapest and most common way to transport captives from one region to another.
The Federally built National (or Cumberland) Road, which by 1818 reached the Ohio River port
of Wheeling, Virginia (subsequently West Virginia), was ideal for coffles. It was the nation's
first paved highway, with bridges across every creek. Laying out approximately the route of the
future US 40, its broken-stone surface provided a westward overland transportation link that began
at the Potomac River port of Cumberland, Maryland. From Wheeling, the captives could be shipped
by riverboat down to the Mississippi and on to the Deep South's second-largest slave market at
Natchez, or further on to the nation's largest slave market, New Orleans.
I'll stop at the demonstration of how Federal infrastructure improve the slave trade's supply
chain.
From my vantage point (starting with my family history and where I live), the coffle seems like
a work of fiction, a dystopian nightmare written by a demeted sadist. Imagine a hundred or so slaves
chained together and being driven down the main street of my small town by dogs and men with whips.
And now imagine this scene was normal, and kids coming home from school walked right past
it. When do I wake up? (Sure, Rome. But that was
thousands of years ago!)
I focused on the long passage from the Sublette's book because it seemed to me to be an objective
correlative for living in the midst of a slave power, and that experience is an important - a critical
- part of American history, and I believe that getting the history right is important.
And although I've written I prefer
human gift to human rental (wage labor), and human rental to human sale (slavery), I don't have
any grand policy pronouncements to make. I do think we need to be leery of using slavery as a metaphor;
"wage slavery" is not slavery; where's the coffle? Ditto "debt slavery." (That's not to say that
wages and debt are not power relations, because of course they are, but the human reality of the
power relations is different.)
So all I can do is ask you to get the image of the coffle firmly in your mind, and children watching
one go by. The coffle was a thing. That was what was going on. The whole thing makes me want to take
a bath. And we're still living with the complicated and painful consequences of slavery today.
Wage slavery is VERY different from chattel slavery. The danger of ignoring that difference
is that it obscures the intimate connection between the two, which is the legal institution of
private property.
The Roman law of property derived by analogy from conditions of slave ownership. Owning
land is an analog of owning slaves.
David Wayne, October 28, 2015 at 3:06 pm
The thing that stands out to me in this article is the reference that all this is a function
of capitalism. All that we are and all that we know is dictated by the needs of capitalism. We
don't run capitalism, it runs us. So much so that it is impossible to conceive past that little
box you're in to imagine – is this the only way we can live. Born in debt. Live in debt. Die
in debt. The one thing they got right: human slavery is so distasteful we can't do it openly anymore.
But wage slavery is just fine, especially debt peonage. No one can complain if you get yourself
into debt, just if someone else puts you there.
Synoia, October 28, 2015 at 12:27 pm
he had felt it was his patriotic duty as a Virginian
His patriotism was founded on his state, not his country?
a soldier fights for his country-right or wrong-he is not responsible for the political
merits of the course he fights in" and that
Was repudiated at Nuremberg, and enshrined on the concept of "War Crimes." However, the attitude
it suits many in Washington, DC today.
James Levy, October 28, 2015 at 4:04 pm
I hate my job. I am de facto a day laborer, delivering items as and when my boss tells
me to. As a former university professor, this is a hard blow. But to say I and 99.9% of the population
are coffled is pure nonsense. My situation is lousy.
But comparing what the black slaves went through with what I am going through is like saying
the internment camps which held the Japanese-Americans were the same as the death camps in Nazi
Germany. One was bad, the other indescribably worse. Not all evils are identical or commensurate.
Working for a wage is tough, but the number of workers flogged to death, publically whipped,
or who had their thumbs legally broken in thumbscrews last year was pretty low. And the number
of American workers last year who got raises or left one job for a better one was pretty high
in comparison with your average black slave.
So cut the crap about how your job today is "just as bad" as being a slave in pre-1865 America.
I can't tell if you sound more like crybabies or idiots.
Jef, October 28, 2015 at 12:31 pm
Cheap almost free oil effectively gives every american 100 to 1000 slaves. Giving up oil will
be as or more difficult than giving up the slaves back then.
TarheelDem, October 28, 2015 at 4:15 pm
Any adequate reading of the history of the Civil War will show that the 11 Confederate
States destroyed themselves out of lust to extend slavery to the northwestern states. They had
through "compromises" extended slavery to the states south of Missouri already. The threat of
urbanization and immigration creating enough free voters to outvote their 1.6 people gerrymanders
terrified the Southern powers-that-be to the point of pre-emptive war. Read the Secession declarations
of each state; believe them for what they say, not the subsequent reunion-period histories.
The economic benefits of the internal slave breeding industry were matched by the political
benefits; they could try to outbreed the Northern increase through immigration and make profits
off sales to western states.
The financial system relative to international monetary relations was so different in the ante-bellum
period that the creation of Confederate money offered little incentive to punishment. Negotiation
with foreign financial centers disputing the credibility of the money, yes. Would you take currency
from a putative new country that was engaged in a war of secession? But as a causus belli, not
likely.
The attempt to frame the United States with the responsibility for the war was primarily a
post-bellum propaganda effort in support of restoring white supremacy.
Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg, October 28, 2015 at 5:47 pm
Yeah- the southern gentlemen were fully aware that even with the stupid 3/5 compromise, they
were going to be on the losing end of a demographic shift if they couldn't expand the slave states.
Hence the weird plots to annex Cuba and take over Mexico.
Oguk, October 28, 2015 at 2:43 pm
I don't know if I posted about this or not, but David Graeber's book (Debt: The first 5000
years) convincingly relates debt directly to slavery, real slavery. Creditors ("masters") rigged
the game, took all their debtors assets, and when there was nothing left for them to take, they
took them, as slaves. Or their wives, daughters, sons. I know, ancient slavery was different in
some respects; slaves could earn their way out or be "redeemed" by a family member or other creditor.
(And there was the Jubilee year – I have to read Michael Hudson on that someday.) I can accept
that American chattel slavery was distinct and diabolical, but it was an intense form of something
that seems to have been with us, humanity, for a long time.
2nd comment is that slave narratives, like Solomon Northrup's or Frederick Douglass's, really
drive the point of this post home. It is a chilling history.
TarheelDem, October 28, 2015 at 7:43 pm
Graeber's book is excellent on the relationship between debt and slavery, a relationship useful
to exploring post-bellum country-store and private debt selling and the debt slavery or working
off debt for third parties. Part of this examination of debt slavery should pay attention to the
way that debt was accounted for and who did the accounting. Company stores in isolated rural areas
were notorious in mining, manufacturing. logging, and agriculture for false books in order to
keep people in debt bondage.
But chattel slavery in America has origin in war raids, not indebtedness, war raids that were
encouraged by the slave traders and in North America involved aboriginal peoples raiding other
aboriginal peoples to provide Amerindian slave for transport from North America to the West Indies
even into the 1700s. That arose aside and independent of English traders trading European goods
on credit for deerskins (in Virginia and Carolina) and slaves. [Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave
Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717]
The political triangulation of the sweeping frontier balance this slavery, white indentured
servitude, and African chattel slavery as balances of forces to preserve the local aristocracy.
So three forms of servitude co-existed until 1717, two persisted until African chattel slavery
was dramatically profitable in the Tidewater tobacco plantations and Carolina rice and indigo
plantations and internal increase of the plantations caught up with labor demand. And the growth
of the political confederations of the "Five Civilized Tribes" in the mid-1700s shut down the
Indian slave trade. The westward expansion after the War of 1812 and the closure of the overseas
slave trade in 1808 created the conditions for the internal slave breeding industry with its generation
of roving coffles and slave traders, it major slave markets, a good many of which have been preserved,
and its new forms of finance and legal entities. This industry is even visible in census records.
Recording the occupations in the 1850 or 1860 census of slave areas in the Carolinas or Virginia,
one comes upon a patter in the vicinity of major plantation slaveowners. There are scattered settlements
that comprise an overseer, a number of blacksmiths, a waggonmaker, and a wheelwright in close
propinquity in a ratio of about one settlement for ever 150 slaves listed as property of the slaveowner.
The blacksmiths made and maintained the coffles. The wagon technicians made and repaired the planters
fleet for hauling bales or hogsheads. The census lists free men, who rarely are identified as
black or mulatto in these areas, generally not in sensitive occupations, such as blacksmith.
Slave traders are generally listed as "merchant". You have to look from specific ads for slaves
to figure out how extensive their trading business was.
Justicia, October 28, 2015 at 9:44 pm
Yes, Graeber's book is excellent on this point: "Slavery is the ultimate form of being ripped
from one's context, and thus from all social relationships that make one a human being. Another
way to put this is that the slave is, in a very real sense, dead."
Dead, perhaps, to the slave-owner and the laws that protected his property but very much alive
and human to their companions in suffering and to those not blinded by greed, prejudice, propaganda
and social convention.
TarheelDem, October 29, 2015 at 9:16 am
The notion of being dead as far as the law is concerned about his person and his property puts
a very interesting twist on knowing one's "place". And greed, prejudice, propaganda, and social
convention are not as much a primary issue as is the power to plunder and abuse regardless of
the particular motive. It is the institutions that defend the behaviors that hold in being the
attitudes. Rush Limbaugh, the shock jocks, Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee County, and their like
defend the behaviors of abusive police; that is to let black people know that the law is dead
to them and to "stay in their place". Focusing on the attitude reduces the issue to an individualist
one of "personal responsibility" and the action of one or a few cops instead of a pervasive network
of abusive institutions held in place by a seamless nationwide network of racist propaganda, material
support for abusers, and legal defenses.
Darthbobber, October 28, 2015 at 11:42 pm
Another take on Graeber's book, from the Brit libertarian (no not those libertarians) Marxists
who publish Aufheben. I only agree with a portion of their critique, but its worth a read. http://libcom.org/library/5000-years-or-debt
nobody
About those textbooks… not those in the state of Texas, but those in use in the other states,
Morris Berman's got some interesting insights:
When you think about it, nearly everything in modern American history turns on the Civil
War, because the ideology I have been describing (which can be more accurately described as a
mythology, or grand narrative) requires us to 'fix' traditional societies and eliminate obstacles
to progress. With the Civil War these two goals converged, making it the paradigm case of how
we carry out, or attempt to carry out, these two projects. What the North did to the South is
really the model of what America in general did and does to 'backward' (i.e., traditional) societies,
if it can. You wipe out almost the entire indigenous population of North America; you steal half
of Mexico; you bomb Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age' (in the immortal words of Curtis LeMay); you
'shock and awe' Iraqi civilians, and so on. In what follows, then, I want to look at the War Between
the States in a completely different way than the one found in the typical American history textbook.
This, in fact, is what generated the energy that led to a four-year battle and the death of 625,000
individuals. What follows is an elaboration of this argument.
Let's start with the view of the South as seen from the North. The popular image of the antebellum
South, as it was presented in American history textbooks and classes when I went to high school
in the North, was pretty much the same then as it is now. That is to say, we were taught that
the South, as the home of slavery, was a backward and immoral place, and its refusal to abandon
that institution was the cause of the Civil War. Under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln (pretty
much depicted as a saint), the virtuous Union armies defeated the evil Confederate ones, and the
slaves were finally set free. Mutatis mutandis, this remains the politically correct version,
as well as the liberal academic version, of the war down to the present time.
[However…]
All the evidence suggests that the North's 'nobility' in fighting slavery was a long-after-the-fact
justification, an attempt to portray the conflict as a victory of morality and equality over depravity.
It's a thesis that gets people all worked up, but it finally doesn't wash.
[…]
In reality, the treatment of the South by the North was the template for the way the United
States would come to treat any nation it regarded as an enemy: not merely a scorched earth policy,
but also a 'scorched soul' policy (the destruction of the Native American population was, of course,
a preview of this). From Japan to Iraq, the pattern is the same, to the extant that we have been
able to impose it: first destroy the place physically (in particular, murder huge numbers of civilians,
as the North did to the South during the Civil War-fifty thousand of them by 1865), and then 'Americanize'
it. Humiliation, the destruction of the identity of the defeated party, has always been an important
part of the equation.
[…]
Sure, the war was about slavery; it was hardly a minor issue. But it was part of a much
larger one about two very different and incompatible civilizations, and a fixation on the moral
question of slavery can blind us to the larger (world) context of the Civil War, which was really
the American version of the global modernization process. No, I have no wish to live in a slave
society; I regard it as an abomination. But the South saw a different type of abomination on the
horizon, one that is now with us; and quite frankly, I have no wish to live in that one either.
Bits of chapter 4 from: Why America Filed: The Roots of Imperial Decline
TarheelDem, October 28, 2015 at 7:57 pm
The important point. The United States of America (Lincoln) did not want to fight. The abolitionists
were a minority. The Southern media (newspaper editors) freaked out like to media shock jocks
did over the election of Barack Obama. Unlike this time around, at least so far, the Southern
states were stampeded by their elites into seceding; the state legislatures and governors were
part of those elites. In the midst of the tension Edmund Ruffin, a pro-secessionist rabble-rouser
from Virginia went to Charleston SC, and with the help of military school Citadel and Arsenal
cadets, and SC militia, conducted a coast artillery attack on the closest military installation
– Fort Sumter. And reactions escalated, very much like the diplomatic environment after the the
1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And they escalated because the Southern hotheads
wanted war.
The area between the two capitals Washington and Richmond was the cockpit of the war. The first
movement was offensive, towards Washington. The Southern planters wanted Lincoln out of there.
JohnnyGL, October 28, 2015 at 3:34 pm
Regarding the coffle, it seems this is early capitalism's answer to the "Trail of Tears" and
the famous "Bataan Death March". Then again, maybe it's not "early" capitalism at all….I'm
thinking of Malaysia and the TPP.
Anarcissie, October 28, 2015 at 4:24 pm
Many years ago I visited a small slavery museum out in the cotton fields somewhere around Memphis
- I forget which side of the river it was on. It was in an old house that might be found anywhere,
but more likely in a suburb than far out in the cotton fields, with no other house in view. Even
the nearest line of trees was hundreds of yards away. In the largest room they had a lot of chains
with large, heavy links, bigger than you would think would be necessary to hold even a very active
human being.
The largest chain had been arranged in a spiral on the floor with the collars around
it, and there was a picture on the wall showing a coffle, the use to which such chains would have
been put. The links of the big chain had a rough, pitted surface, and were a sort of rusty reddish-black.
The elderly White woman in charge told me it had been taken from a long-gone barn or shed not
far away exactly as it was, where it had probably rested since slavery days. In other words, unless
the wind and the rain had washed them off, you could still find the blood and sweat of slaves
on the links. There was some other agricultural gear about, like the hand tools the slaves would
have used.
There was not a lot of signage and no glossy brochures. Pictures on the walls depicted
a plantation house and outbuildings none of which remained, with the exception of the one the
museum was in. I wondered who had put the museum together. When I asked how it had come to be,
the woman only said, 'It's our history. We think people should know about it.'
Felix47, October 28, 2015 at 9:27 pm
Slavery in the US was rather tame and short lived in comparison to the slavery practiced by
the Muslims and Africans themselves. The Somalians enslaved the Bantus etc. etc. The Arabs enslaved
everyone and I recall seeing slaves even in 1991 in Saudi Arabia…..doing the labor since descendents
of Mohammed avoid physical labor if they can since they see it as demeaning. The big difference
was that the Arabs did not seem to see breeding slaves as a business…..they had them castrated
in Africa often before they were imported. It was not until 1960 that slavery was outlawed in
Saudi Arabia although it may well continue to this day. To really understand large scale slavery
we need to go back to the origins of the Muslim movement.
Liz, October 29, 2015 at 6:33 pm
Hi Lambert, the book that first put the scope of the slave trading and breeding industries
into context for me was The World That Made New Orleans by Ned Sublette. It's a fascinating and
terrible account and if I recall correctly, describes some of the slave breeding operations carried
out by Thomas Jefferson.
Neocon Wolf Blitzer against Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
Notable quotes:
"... This is one incredible person, she stands in a league of her own. The only pol Ive heard in a decade that makes a bit of sense. I now despise only 534 members of CONgress. ..."
"... Former CIA director Allen Dulles ordered JFKs assassination because he was a threat to national security, a new book has claimed. ..."
"... Allen Dulles most certainly was involved with the murder of JFK, and ensuing coverup. Dulles was central in the Warren Commission whitewash as well ..."
"... Elected in 2012, she is the first American Samoan[3] and the first Hindu member of the United States Congress,[4] and, along with Tammy Duckworth, one of its first female combat veterans.[5] ..."
"... She has a lot of guts unlike the shitty little vile NeoCons like McCain and Lindsay Graham and the Neo-Zio-Libs like Feinstein and Schumer who are dual shit-i-zens. ..."
"... fighting against Islamic extremists. ..."
"... What the CIA, et alia, ..."
"... Islamic extremist groups, ..."
"... terrorism, ..."
"... uccessfulness ..."
"... insanities. ..."
"... AFGHAN OPIUM PRODUCTION INCREASES 35-FOLD SINCE U.S. INVASION ..."
"... "Hoisted on their own petard" is an apt aphorism. ..."
"... Petard action happens at 6 minutes in, when Tulsi explains how if the U.S. repeats the same action as Iraq and Libya, the results will equal. ..."
One point we've been particularly keen on driving home since the beginning of Russian airstrikes
in Syria is that The Kremlin's move to step in on behalf of Bashar al-Assad along with Vladimir Putin's
open "invitation" to Washington with regard to joining forces in the fight against terrorism effectively
let the cat out of the proverbial bag.
That is, it simply wasn't possible for the US to explain why the Pentagon refused to partner with
the Russians without admitting that i) the government views Assad, Russia, and Iran as a greater
threat than ISIS, and ii) Washington and its regional allies don't necessarily want to see Sunni
extremism wiped out in Syria and Iraq.
Admitting either one of those points would be devastating from a PR perspective. No amount
of Russophobic propaganda and/or looped video clips of the Ayatollah ranting against the US would
be enough to convince the public that Moscow and Tehran are a greater threat than the black flag-waving
jihadists beheading Westerners and burning Jordanian pilots alive in Hollywood-esque video clips,
and so, The White House has been forced to scramble around in a desperate attempt to salvage the
narrative.
Well, it hasn't worked.
With each passing week, more and more people are beginning to ask the kinds of questions the Pentagon
and CIA most assuredly do not want to answer and now, US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
is out calling Washington's effort to oust Assad both "counterproductive" and "illegal."
In the following priceless video clip, Gabbard accuses the CIA of arming the very same terrorists
who The White House insists are "our sworn enemy" and all but tells the American public that the
government is lying to them and may end up inadvertently starting "World War III."
This is one incredible person, she stands in a league of her own. The only pol I've heard
in a decade that makes a bit of sense. I now despise only 534 members of CONgress.
Paveway IV
"...Gabbard accuses the CIA of arming the very same terrorists who The White House insists
are "our sworn enemy" and all but tells the American public that the government is lying to
them and may end up inadvertently starting "World War III."..."
Oh, then you're saying that that's future PRESIDENT Gabbard...
Sergeiab
Damn, you might be right. Look: see the public opinion is totally shifting (Easy when you have
access to all the comments of all medias, including the moderated ones). Find someone among the
democrats who voice it. Give her/him "random" media exposure (she was on Bill Maher few days ago)
"Sudden rise of an outsider". She's a soldier/veteran/surfer 32yo. "Incredible American story".
And at some point, she says she's transgender. Instant POTUS. That fits. That fits the "change/let's
do something wild for once" that everybody's craving for (Trump). And it can't be random that
a dissident voice is given media exposure. And she's beyond democrat/gop... That's a lot.
She left out Mossad, mI6, Saudis, Turkey and how many other zionist controlled CUNTries.
Dick Buttkiss
"Accuses CIA Of Backing Terroists."
Backing terrorist? How about being terrorists?
dot_bust
I agree. Good point.
I'd like to add that President John F. Kennedy issued an NSAM forbidding the CIA from conducting
an further paramilitary operations and turned those operations over to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the op-ed, Truman said that the CIA had begun making policy instead of simply analyzing
data. He also emphasized his discomfort with the idea of the Agency participating in cloak-and-dagger
operations.
SWRichmond
Thanks for the link. Truman says:
I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent
directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest
character, patriotism and integrity-and I assume this is true of all those who continue in
charge.
Former CIA director Allen Dulles ordered JFK's assassination because he was a 'threat
to national security', a new book has claimed.
Bay of Pigs
Allen Dulles most certainly was involved with the murder of JFK, and ensuing coverup. Dulles
was central in the Warren Commission whitewash as well. People forget he was dumped after
the Bay of Pigs fiasco with JFK saying at the time that he would "splinter the CIA into a thousand
pieces and scatter it to the winds".
Author David Talbot interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.
Elected in 2012, she is the first American Samoan[3] and the first Hindu member of the
United States Congress,[4] and, along with Tammy Duckworth, one of its first female combat veterans.[5]
In 2004, when Tulsi's fellow soldiers from the 29th Brigade were called to war in Iraq, Tulsi
volunteered to join them. She didn't need to put her life on the line. She could have stayed in
the State House of Representatives, but in her heart, she felt it was more important to stand
in solidarity with her fellow soldiers than to climb the political ladder.
Her two deployments to the war-torn and dangerous Middle East revealed both Tulsi's natural
inclination to self-less service and her ability to perform well in situations demanding confidence,
courage, and the ability to perform well as a member of a team. The same maturity and character
that served Tulsi well in the Middle East makes her exceptionally effective in the political world.
Freddie
These banksters wars like all wars are total shit but I like her.
She is half Samoan and was a Catholic but became a Hindu.
She has a lot of guts unlike the shitty little vile NeoCons like McCain and Lindsay Graham
and the Neo-Zio-Libs like Feinstein and Schumer who are dual shit-i-zens.
While I agreed with your overview, WTFRLY, at the 1:25 mark I think she is seriously
mistaken about the priority being fighting against Islamic extremists.
The real enemy of the American People has been the international bankers, who have almost totally
captured control over the government of the USA, through POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS.
Her basic opinion regarding
9/11 deliberately ignores that
9/11 was an inside job, false flag attack, which was aided and abetted by the Deep State Shadow
Government. Everything that the USA has been doing has been actually carrying out the international
bankers' agenda. The countries targeted for regime change were obstacles to the consolidation
of the globalized hegemony of the international bankers, who are the best organized gangsters,
the banksters, that have already captured control over all NATO governments, as is painfully obvious
to anyone who thinks critically about how and why those governments ENFORCE FRAUDS by privately
controlled banks.
What the CIA, et alia, having been doing, since the overthrow of the government
of Iran back in 1953, has been creating "Islamic extremist groups,"
as the responses of the various Islamic countries having been controlled by the European invasions,
and later American invasions, which were always directed at capturing control over the development
of the natural resources, through maintaining the control over the monetary systems through which
that was done.
The whole of human history has been the exponential growth of social pyramid systems based
upon being able to back up lies with violence, becoming more sophisticated and integrated systems
of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which have become globalized systems of electronic
money frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs. There is indeed a serious risk
of NATO countries, already almost totally controlled by the international bankers, getting into
conflicts with the national interests of various countries which no longer are so easy for the
banksters to continue to control.
The banksters have been pushing through their agenda of wars based on deceits, in order to
back up their debt slavery systems, and those were primarily the reasons for the series of regime
changes, which appear to have stalled with respect to Syria. That Russia has decided that it is
geopolitically able, along with the propaganda cover of fighting "terrorism," to step
in with significant military support of the Syrian regime is indeed in severe conflict with the
agenda of the international banksters, who are collectively a group of trillionaire mass murderers.
Human history has become the excessive successfulness of the application
of the methods of organized crime to control governments, through the vicious spirals of POLITICAL
FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS, to develop to the point of runaway criminal insanities.
While the Congresswoman above provided more penetrating analysis than one is used to be presented
on the mainstream mass media, and she did that fairly well, she still is presenting the political
problems only on very superficial levels ...
She is an example of integrity standing up for what is right. I see many people of heart doing
the same as this unfolds. We are supposed to support the "Underdog" Remember?
Her father is of Samoan/European heritage and is a practicing Catholic who is a
lector at his church, but also enjoys practicing mantra meditation, including kirtan.[7] Her
mother is of Euro-American descent and a practicing Hindu.[7] Tulsi fully embracedHinduism
as a teenage
At 5 minutes in to video, Wolf B. mentions that Tulsi is a combat veteran.
She is also on Senate Arms services committee.
Blitzer was born in Augsburg, Germany] the son of Cesia Blitzer (née Zylberfuden),
a homemaker, and David Blitzer, a home builder. His parents were Jewish refugees from O?wi?cim,
Poland, and Holocaust survivors… While at Johns Hopkins, Blitzer studied abroad at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, where he learned Hebrew.
Petard action happens at 6 minutes in, when Tulsi explains how if the U.S. repeats the
same action as Iraq and Libya, the results will equal.
"Things that are being said right now about Assad, were said about Ghadaffi.., they were
said about Saddam Hussein, by those who were advocating for the U.S. to intervene, to
go overthrow those regimes and dictators. The fact is, if that happens here in Syria,….far
worse situation, persecution of religious minorities and Christians."
Who advocated to start ME wars? Wolf then puts words in her mouth, suggesting that Hezbollah
and Russians are doing the U.S. a favor.
To give Wolf full credit, he doesn't explode when Tulsi mentions persecution of the Christians,
as said Christians MUST be his enemy and color Wolf's wordview, given his parents refugee history.
Oh the web we weave, when we intend to deceive.
rejected
Well, she managed to get in the meme "We were attacked by Al Qaeda on 9/11". They push that
meme every chance they get.
The spooks at the CIA know how to push propaganda. She will get all kinds of credibility appearing
to oppose the spooks and very few will notice the 9/11 comment but the seed will be fertilized
and grow stronger.
ebear
"....very few will notice the 9/11 comment but the seed will be fertilized and grow stronger."
I beg to differ. That seed was already planted. Why are we supporting the people who
attacked us? - keeps it nice and simple. Turns the entire narrative against them.
One dragon at a time.
Omega_Man
not a good interview for zio Wolfe ...
I didn't like this girl before, but starting to like her.
She needs a security team... to protect her from the US Gov... no joke
A lot of wishful thinking. The USA still remain world only superpower and (in somewhat diminished
way) as well as a technological leader. And the USA is still the most powerful (neoliberal) empire (that does not contradict
dismal state of the USA infrastructure; that's typical for empire on late stage of development). It
just overextended itself due to neocon dominance in the US politics.
And remember that Russia
is neoliberal state too. And it was Putin who got Russia into WTO. Putin is a unique leader, but
his rule is not eternal. An there is nobody after him to continue defiant course. actually Russia will
face crisis of leadership after he is gone. So in a way TINA (or PAX Americana) still hold.
Notable quotes:
"... Zero fucking accountability. Greenspan and Bernanke didnt get it for blowing the Mother of All Bubbles. Clinton didnt get it for NAFTA and tearing down Glass-Steagal. Bush didnt get it for being asleep at the switch for 9/11 and then the wonderful Iraq and Afghan wars. Hilary didnt get it for creating all-terror zones in Libya. And Obama wont get it for destroying health care and doubling the national debt. ..."
"... think some of you are missing the big picture. Say that US Plan-B failed-take over Syria after Iraq. Isis are Sunnis. US have always supported Sunnis. So, Isis controls Iraq, with US and Saudi support (Plan-C). Now, say that in a couple years US, Saudi, and Israel manage a Coup D'état in Syria. ..."
"... As difficult as it is for most westerners to wrap their heads around... we are on the wrong side. Our side is really and truly the dark side. The side that is ruled by the banking cabal and who is hell bent on causing war after war after war in the name of expanding their hold on the entire planet. ..."
"... This is an unending war, if the US and the west pulls out of it and now Russia owns the mess. Russias economy is rather fucked at the moment and they are in no position to be fighting endless wars. ..."
"... ---Thanks to the fact that the Western media has held up ISIS as the devil incarnate........... ..."
"... ......... ..."
"... For now, however, expect ISIS to gradually disappear from the mainstream medias front pages. ..."
"... youve got a whole pentagon full of neocons whose heads are about to pop off; the urge in that building to intervene, er help, and blow shit up has to be extreme; if i was prezzy purple dank, id be maybe a little nervous of the suicide bug if you get it. ..."
"... The US and the House of Saud created, by accident or design, all the gangs of Muslim mass murderers currently terrorizing the planet. You want order restored and something done about Muslim mass murderers in your region, you bring in the Russians. ..."
"... With dirty Saudi oil money removed from the politics of Western nations, maybe something will finally be done to reverse Islamisation in the West. ..."
"... I agree with most of your comment, but Israel has never shown any interest in peace. If anything, they want the same kind of peace the US gave to the Native Americans (in this case, the Palestinians). ..."
"... Jordan? HAHAHA! Will they have their anti-ISIS intelligence center three blocks away from their USA sponsored ISIS training centers, or would that be taboo? What shameless whores those people must be. Its astonishing how quickly the wind can change direction. ..."
"... The US-led rules, which enforces verification of targets, regularly give IS militants time to save their supplies, equipment and fighters, they said. I dont see any similar constraint by US forces when it comes to bombing hospitals and wedding parties... ..."
"... Dont forget ISISs tanker trucks providing both income to ISIS and a increased oil supply to the market to keep prices down and ruin Russia economically. ..."
"... I suppose yesterday you noticed the US Syrian dwarfs came out out of the woodwork to tell the western MSM how many hospitals the Russians had bombed. ..."
"... You really have to hand it to the idiots (neocons) running DC. They totally blew it with the orchestration and training of ISIS to overthrow Assad, all the while having the MSM demonize ISIS as the bogeyman of the Middle East. Personally, I think the Ruskies are a bit slow on the uptake here. Why they didnt pull this off a year ago is beyond me. Maybe they have more patience than I do. ..."
"... Jordan has no choice but to join the Syrian/Russian/Iraq/Iran coalition. ISIS supply lines to and from Turkey will be cut. While the coalition nulifies US backed Anti-Assad moderate opposition , ISIS will be pushed southeast into eastern Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Jordan cant protect itself from US backed ISIS and sees Russia as its only savior. ..."
"... I agree that the Saudis will never ally with Iran, but we should clarify that the conflict you are describing is not Sunni vs Shia. but Wahhabi cultists versus mainstream Sunni and Shia. The Syrian army is 60% Sunni ..."
"... Egypt is also traditional Sunni and will likely move toward Russia and abandon the Saudis. ..."
"... Yes, the sectarian civil war nonsense was created to hide and counter the guerrilla war in Iraq. Iraq never had a civil war before, and there hadnt been a sectarian civil war anywhere. That the heavily intermarried anti-occupation Arabs needed to be fragmented into ghettos (just like the Palestinians naturally) ..."
"... Obama vowed to wage an unrelenting war on ISIL/ISIS. He said it would be a long haul, but terrorists would never hide from the USA. Fast forward to a full year of ISIL advances on the ground backed by a flood of US supplied TOW Anti Tank Guided Missiles, in use by Al-Qaeda and ISIL both. So Russia steps in to the fight. Obama demands they stop their sir strikes, stop arming Assad, and go home. ..."
"... Thats the best part about solving a problem that youve created. The severity of the problem will conveniently wax and wane to suit your needs. Need to scare the sheeple and keep foreign vassals loyal? Step #1 Create a pet bogeyman. Step #2: Defeat the pet bogeyman. Repeat as often as needed to maintain hegemony. ..."
"... I admire Putin for his steadfast defense of his country in the face of covert terrorism from the west. I fear the ME might be a quagmire although surely he better understands it than I do. As for the neocunts, everyone of you should die for the destruction youve sewn ..."
"... List of GCC countries, Gulf countries *Great Data Site-- Note: It is the NGOs belonging to the UAE Qatar that fund the jihadist throughout the *muslim-sunni world... with Saudi Arabia at the helm. The geographic landscape is telling...[Qatar and Bahrain have gargantuan R R military base outpost for USSA military brass] while most jihadist are recruited throughout the worlds muslim-sunni communities and trained in Jordan, and Pakistan etel! ..."
"... It should not be surprising that Putin, who has an excellent grasp of foreign affairs and intellectually far above most, if not all US policy makers, will exploit this situation. Further, ISIS can easily create major problems in Jordan, (where do they go once they are driven out of Syria?) something the King of Jordan, is no doubt well aware. Bottom line- the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq may well go down as the biggest military and economic disaster in world history. ..."
"... And just when are Germans, Italians, French and the Eastern European wanna-bes going to demand that NATO be dissolved and the American MIC permanently removed from their landscape(s) after 70 years of hovering ?... ..."
"... Lay the blame at the feet of those most responsible for this crisis who were coerced, bribed and threatened if they didnt do with impunity what the American IC and military demanded them to do and not the innocent begging for refuge while your government(s) assisted in the looting operation of their sovereign Countries! ..."
Zero fucking accountability. Greenspan and Bernanke didn't get it for blowing the Mother of
All Bubbles. Clinton didn't get it for NAFTA and tearing down Glass-Steagal. Bush didn't get it
for being asleep at the switch for 9/11 and then the wonderful Iraq and Afghan wars. Hilary didn't
get it for creating all-terror zones in Libya. And Obama won't get it for destroying health care
and doubling the national debt.
WTF are you gonna do. The United States of Amnesia.
BTW Turkey is the next Syria, you heard it here first.
jeff montanye
Bush was not asleep at the switch on 9-11. he just played one on teevee.
I think some of you are missing the big picture. Say that US Plan-B failed-take over Syria
after Iraq. Isis are Sunnis. US have always supported Sunnis. So, Isis controls Iraq, with US
and Saudi support (Plan-C). Now, say that in a couple years US, Saudi, and Israel manage a Coup
D'état in Syria.
... ... ...
Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived(s).......
The writer of this comment is really stupid, ignorant and moronic. The middle east isn't ours.
Its not our toy. Russia didn't steal our toy. Its not the taxpayers job to fund a global playground
for the US military to "exert our will".
Everything in the above article was PURE PROPAGANDA designed to promote some type of kneejerk
response to Russia stealing our "toy".
Leave it alone. The middle east is like a big turd pile. We've got to learn to stop playing
in it. Apparently readers of ZH think that playing King of the Turd Pile is exactly what taxpayers
are supposed to finance.
Pure Evil
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov's saying about selling the capitalists the rope to hang themselves
seems almost apropos in this situation.
After 9-11 the Russians allowed the former Soviet Republics to open up forward operating bases
for the US to supply its foray into Afghanistan. When we went a bridge to far they then applied
the pressure to deny access to these former airfields and our only supply route is now through
Pakistan. And, undoubtedly the Pakistanis would more than be willing to sell us out to the Chinese
and Russians.
With Iraq they sat back and watched us waste not only men and war fighting material but bleed
the US Treasury dry.
They also stood down as we stoked the Arab Spring from Tunisia to Libya to Syria. Now Europe
suffers from their own Arab Spring as millions of Sunni with no place to live invade Europe.
We overturn Saddam only to replace him with Shia leaders in control and we can only sit back
and wonder why the Iranians control the Iraqi army.
We've spent trillions upon trillions of dollars only to hand over Syria and Iraq on a silver
platter to Russia and Iran.
... ... ...
The neocons who consider themselves the best and brightest have totally botched everything
and they're about to finish the take down of the US via amnesty, Obamacare, TPP, gun control,
more and even higher immigration, and Wall Street corruption.
Can America afford anymore of their hubris?
Albertarocks
I think most of the world can see what's going to happen once Putin is finished putting the
pieces all back together again. Peace is going to break out. And that's something that the US
admin. just can't comprehend. [And I don't mean 'the American people'. It's the admin. acting
as the puppet for the global banking mafia.] Can they accept peace in the Middle East? Hard to
say, but when there is peace in the world, the US military industrial complex, the bankers, the
fascist corporations, the dark side in general can't rule and make obscene amounts of money robbing
the rest of the world.
As difficult as it is for most westerners to wrap their heads around... we are on the wrong
side. Our 'side' is really and truly the dark side. The side that is ruled by the banking cabal
and who is hell bent on causing war after war after war in the name of expanding their hold on
the entire planet.
It's also considered a mortal sin in the west to cheer for the enemy. And maybe that's the
proper and loyal stance to have, but cheering for Putin's success is not cheering for the enemy.
The dark side, 'our side', is the world's enemy. Your children's enemy. Your grand children's
enemy. The enemy of all of humanity and what is 'right'. Then enemy of this entire once-beautiful
planet.
So ya, I want to see Putin be left alone to reassemble the god damned mess the bankers have
caused. And then I want to see westerners turn our furious gaze inward... at the real cause of
all the world's trouble. Our governments' day of reckoning is what westerners should be focusing
on.
Paveway IV
"...It's also considered a mortal sin in the west to cheer for the enemy..."
Critical thinking ability is also a mortal sin in the West. Which would quickly lead one to
surmise that the term 'enemy' is a neurolinguistic trick used by psychopaths to make you do something
against your will, morals or better judgement. Replace 'enemy' with a more succinct term: 'evil'.
Is Russia evil? No. Would you cheer for evil? Of course not. See how easy it is to untwist the
psychopath's perverted logic?
California Nightmares
Some great comments, here. I'm afraid to thunbs up some of these. Microsoft and Google are
probably capturing my every mouse click.
I offer only one thought: were the Russians (God bless 'em) to attain control of most of the
Middle East's oil, we zeros in the USA would find ourselves living back in 1850.
ThroxxOfVron
"I think most of the world can see what's going to happen once Putin is finished putting
the pieces all back together again. Peace is going to break out. And that's something that
the US admin. just can't comprehend. "
I don't think that the War Profiteers are going to just shrug, stop taking our money from us,
and find useful productive activities with which to earn honest livings so easily...
It's right about next year that South America should start to disintegrate.
Argentina., Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico: are ALL in serious trouble due to excessive/corrosive
mismanagement and corruption, narco trade and human trafficing dynamics, commodities cycle collaps/reversions,
resource depletions, etc..
Texas will have it's 'Hungarian' border moment soon enough as large populations finally give
up any hope for political order and economic stability in their homelands and migrate north to
the relative political stability and economic health ( and the generous social/welfare benefits!
) offered by the political ideologues in the US and Canada...
I expect that the usual political/policy factions the US will each welcome a wave of several
millions of migrants, and launch military incursions into convulsing failed or failing South American
states, albeit for differently stated reasons or ideological affinities...
IF the South American situation is not a large enough crisis to merit interventions and migrations
it will be aggravated/enhanced to the point where it is worth of interventions by the Warfare/Welfare
State nexus.
trulz4lulz
This is amazing!! Murikistan totally has lost control of their petrodollar superiority in 5
WEEKS! The rest will just be formalities of setting up the re republics of Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
Libya, and Afghanistan for russia and iran to reside over. This is the best cock-up in the history
of the modern era!
Masterclass geopolitical strategy, Russia and Iran. Not like it wasn't handed to you on a silver
platter or anything by obombya and his nerry band of mentally retarded sycophants, but still.
Well played.
P.S. Murikistan doesn't survive this. Im hoping the great lakes region goes to the canadians
though.
chunga
I've been thinking for a while that for USSA to maintain the petro-dollar reserve status it
needs it's military to have at least an aura of invinciblity. Without that it would be tough to
keep doing tricks like QE. And without the QE financial tricks it would be tough to pay for the
giant military so catch-22.
Since USSA has fucked with just about everybody over there, their list of allies is pretty
bad mainly just cutthroat Saudi Arabia and Israel. With the Russians giving Uncle Scam the finger
it might embolden others to do the same. That's why I fear 'Murika might fly off the handle over
this and really escalate the shooting because it has no choice. They've burned up all their goodwill
internationally so only tool they have is a hammer.
Albertarocks -> chunga
I couldn't possibly agree with you more. You nailed it. Sam is in such a pickle. The bankers
have led the US down the garden path, using it as it's 'bully branch', and this is more or less
what I meant by our government being held to account. 90% of Congress should be charged with treason,
given a fair trial and be made to suffer the consequences. If any one of them are found 'not guilty',
then the judge should be charged with treason as well since it is already 100% obvious that when
any one of them who signs bills, unread, at midnight, they have just committed an act of treason
in that irresponsible act alone. I mean it's just incredible how evil the admin. has become. It's
time to shake that house apart and bring 'rule of law' back into the forefront where it belongs.
And then the oversight agencies like the SEC and the FDA... it's time to tear those demonic agencies
to shreds and deal with their leaders accordingly. Those are the people who should probably pay
the ultimate penalty first.
Freddie
the speed - 5 weeks - makes me think this has all been planned out. The installation of See
Eye Aye NWO shit like Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obola makes me wonder. All four are See Eye Aye Moles.
All four are related. See video above. The USSA is a joke filled with idiots brainwashed by
TV and Zollywood.
Omen IV
So the usa circles Russia and China with most of the 700 bases it operates and Iran in motion
with Russia's help to circle Saudi Arabia with its own sphere of operation - pushing ISIS / ISIL
/ Daesh / Free Syrian Army / Al Nusra et al = Sunni's - to recognize the big prize that SA represents
to ALL Sunni
The Princes right now have Mecca ???
laomei
I'm failing to see the downside to any of this. The US gets bitched at no matter what it does
now. It's always wrong in some way or another, so fuck it I guess. Russia, which is MUCH CLOSER
than the US is to this mess now gets to stick their dick into this bee hive and see what comes
of it. This is an unending war, if the US and the west pulls out of it and now Russia owns
the mess. Russia's economy is rather fucked at the moment and they are in no position to be fighting
endless wars.
monk27
Russia's economy is much less fucked than America's economy. Printing USD with abandon (with
and without issuing corresponding debt), and stuffing them into your own banks, hardly qualifies
as "economy". By any measure you choose, US is in worse shape than Russia, corruption included...
At this point, probably the best thing US could hope for would be to clean up it's act internally
(filling the jails with financial crooks would help), and do nothing as foreign policy, at least
for a while. Detoxification is essential for survival...
Tyler Durden----''Thanks to the fact that the Western media has held up
ISIS as the devil incarnate''...........
can somebody make a youtube video montage of the talking heads, retired generals, republican
debate freak show contestants, PNAC ZIO-CONs telling us how evil ISIS is/are ..........because
ISIS has disappearded from the MSM headlines as Tyler predicted 2 weeks ago.....
Tyler Durden--''For now, however, expect ISIS to gradually disappear from
the mainstream media's front pages.''
re laomei: allow me to take a stab at 'splaining this: the reason it matters is because
you've got a whole pentagon full of neocons whose heads are about to pop off; the urge in that
building to intervene, er help, and blow shit up has to be extreme; if i was prezzy purple dank,
i'd be maybe a little nervous of the suicide bug if you get it.
also, for how long does anyone think israel is going to stand by and let this shit show build?
they're playing it cool for now. but so did Putin until about 60 days ago . . .
this all of course is just a guess; WTF do i know, i'm just a dumb sum bitch that pays my bills
and half of everyone else's;
Niall Of The Nine Hostages
It's not a "foolproof cover story." It's the truth. The US and the House of Saud created,
by accident or design, all the gangs of Muslim mass murderers currently terrorizing the planet.
You want order restored and something done about Muslim mass murderers in your region, you bring
in the Russians.
On to Riyadh, Doha and Dubai. After the House of Saud and Thani are driven from power and liquidated,
you won't hear another word about the war on terror. With dirty Saudi oil money removed from
the politics of Western nations, maybe something will finally be done to reverse Islamisation
in the West.
And there will be peace in Israel for forty years.
grekko -> Niall Of The Nine Hostages
You really have to eliminate Bibi first, and his whole neocon cadre. He incites the other side
to be stupid, so he can reap the votes of the stupid. Then there will be peace.
Caleb Abell
I agree with most of your comment, but Israel has never shown any interest in peace. If anything,
they want the same kind of peace the US gave to the Native Americans (in this case, the Palestinians).
Jack's Raging Bile Duct
Jordan? HAHAHA! Will they have their anti-ISIS intelligence center three blocks away from
their USA sponsored ISIS training centers, or would that be taboo? What shameless whores those
people must be. It's astonishing how quickly the wind can change direction.
smacker
[copied over from previous article]
This looks like it's one of the tactics used by US forces in Syria/Iraq to minimise any bombing
damage to its ISIS terrorist friends:
from that article at http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iraq-authorises-russia-strike-islamic-...
" "They [the US-led coalition] refuse to strike private cars, mosques, bridges, schools despite
the fact Daesh militants are mainly using these places as headquarters," a senior military officer
[...] told MEE."
"The US-led rules, which enforces verification of targets, regularly give IS militants
time to save their supplies, equipment and fighters, they said." I don't see any similar constraint
by US forces when it comes to bombing hospitals and wedding parties...
bid the soldier
Don't forget ISIS's tanker trucks providing both income to ISIS and a increased oil supply
to the market to keep prices down and ruin Russia economically.
smacker
Yep, it'll be good if Putin's bombers locate a few ISIS oil convoys and deal with them. That
won't please the Turkish middle-men.
bid the soldier... -> smacker
I suppose yesterday you noticed the US Syrian dwarfs came out out of the woodwork to tell the
western MSM how many hospitals the Russians had bombed.
Apparently unnewsworthy until the US bombed the MSF hospital in Afghanistan.
Its hard to say which is more pathetic: the US military or US propaganda.
Lea
"Iraq allows Russia to strike ISIL" is nowhere but on this Turkish site. I call BS. The whole
of the Russian media would make this headlines. There is zilch, nada on Sputnik, RT or TASS.
grekko
You really have to hand it to the idiots (neocons) running DC. They totally blew it with
the orchestration and training of ISIS to overthrow Assad, all the while having the MSM demonize
ISIS as the bogeyman of the Middle East. Personally, I think the Ruskies are a bit slow on the
uptake here. Why they didn't pull this off a year ago is beyond me. Maybe they have more patience
than I do.
dustyfin
There's a time for everything.
A year ago Russia had other concerns, its military was a year less well prepared and a year
ago, I think that Putin and his government still thought that some form of rapprochement could
be made with The West.
Also, to get this far has required a whole heap of planning, negotiating, horse trading and
arm twisting. Think of this as being the 'overnight success' that took a decade to achieve!
sudzee
Jordan has no choice but to join the Syrian/Russian/Iraq/Iran coalition. ISIS supply lines
to and from Turkey will be cut. While the coalition nulifies US backed Anti-Assad "moderate opposition",
ISIS will be pushed southeast into eastern Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Jordan can't protect itself
from US backed ISIS and sees Russia as its only savior.
Saudi Arabia will have no choice soon but to join the coalition as well.
Get ready to price oil in Rubles or gold as the US is completely forced out of the entire middle
east.
PrimalScream
I will differ with you on that one. The Saudis will never join Russia and Iran - that would
be a union between Sunnis and Shiites. It is not going to happen. This new power struggle pits
Sunni nations directly against the Shiites. It will be big and it will be bloody.
Rhett72
I agree that the Saudis will never ally with Iran, but we should clarify that the conflict
you are describing is not Sunni vs Shia. but Wahhabi cultists versus mainstream Sunni and Shia.
The Syrian army is 60% Sunni, and the Jordanian Hashemites are traditional Sunnis descended
from Prophet Muhammad who were expelled from Mecca by the Saudis. Egypt is also traditional
Sunni and will likely move toward Russia and abandon the Saudis.
Zadig
Yes, the sectarian civil war nonsense was created to hide and counter the guerrilla war
in Iraq. Iraq never had a civil war before, and there hadn't been a 'sectarian civil war' anywhere.
That the heavily intermarried anti-occupation Arabs needed to be fragmented into ghettos (just
like the Palestinians naturally), but the pro-occupation Kurds didn't should have made things
obvious to everyone.
Jack Burton
Obama vowed to wage an unrelenting war on ISIL/ISIS. He said it would be a long haul, but
terrorists would never hide from the USA. Fast forward to a full year of ISIL advances on the
ground backed by a flood of US supplied TOW Anti Tank Guided Missiles, in use by Al-Qaeda and
ISIL both. So Russia steps in to the fight. Obama demands they stop their sir strikes, stop arming
Assad, and go home.
Wanna see what Russia at war looks like? Want to see how they answer ISIL chopping heads off,
eating organs etc. Watch the FULL video below of the Syrian Arab Army employ their new Russian
supplied TOS-1 thermobaric weapon.
That's the best part about solving a problem that you've created. The severity of the problem
will conveniently wax and wane to suit your needs. Need to scare the sheeple and keep foreign
vassals loyal? Step #1 Create a pet bogeyman. Step #2: Defeat the pet bogeyman. Repeat as often
as needed to maintain hegemony.
Russia jumping in at Step #2 to reap the plaudits (and weapon sales!), is probably what Mordor
hates the most about all this.
taopraxis
People who think Russia and China and the USA are enemies probably think Republicans and Democrats
are enemies. Step back and it seems fairly obvious that someone behind the scene is moving these
pieces around on the global chess board and the political puppets are merely implementing the
new policies.
Obama looks like a Marketing Prez. Putin acts more like a COO. Abe is CFO, apparently, a frightening
thought. Not sure what the Chinese and Saudi top dogs are all about...real players, maybe. All
just conjecture, but the way the USA pulled out and the Russians moved in looked too well coordinated
to be anything other than that...coordinated.
rejected
Hopefully President Putin doesn't put too much on his plate. The ussa is setting up fresh arms
deliveries to the terrorists as we ponder.
It's going to be tough going for the Russian Federation to clean up the mess the ussa has made
of the ME over the last 25 years. The whole damn place is a complete disaster with Arabs killing
each other and Israel killing as many Palestinians as they can.
It's astonishing the Arabs, like the Ukrainians, can't seem to understand the ussa modus operandi
that is,,, start a bunch of crap then back off and watch the fun. Sort of like the bar fight scenes
in movies where the perp that starts the brawl exits once everyone is fighting.
Berspankme
I admire Putin for his steadfast defense of his country in the face of covert terrorism
from the west. I fear the ME might be a quagmire although surely he better understands it than
I do. As for the neocunts, everyone of you should die for the destruction you've sewn
earleflorida
Why waste valuable resources dividing and conquering in a medieval world, when religion can
do the trick without unsheathing a sword? All but[t] for,... only the might being in the hands
of the dual-mine'd pen'heads[?], is all one needs as a metaphoric representation of a classical
'Damocles Dilemma' victory? Why tell your right hand what your doing when the left will do it
for you in a asymmetric 'syncreticism'!
"List of GCC countries, Gulf countries' *Great Data Site-- Note: It is the 'NGOs' belonging
to the UAE & Qatar that fund the jihadist throughout the *muslim-sunni world... with Saudi Arabia
at the helm. The geographic landscape is telling...[Qatar and Bahrain have gargantuan R&R military
base outpost for USSA military brass] while most jihadist are recruited throughout the worlds
muslim-sunni communities and trained in Jordan, and Pakistan etel!
"There is a strong cooperation between MOSSAD and ISIS top military commanders...Israeli advisors
helping the Organization on laying out strategic and military plans, and guiding them in the battlefield"
The terrorist organization also has military consultants from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab
Emirates and Jordan. Saudi Arabia has so far provided ISIS with 30,000 vehicles, while Jordan
rendered 4500 vehicles. Qatar and United Arab Emirates delivered funds for covering ISIS overall
expenditure.
The planes belonging to the aforesaid countries are still landing in the Mosel airport, carrying
military aid and fighters, especially via the Jordanian borders.
Phillyguy
Key events in US Iraq campaign
Judy Miller and Michael Gordon publish their piece in the paper of record (NYT) about Sadam
Hussein's attempts to obtain parts for nuclear weapons in 2002 (later shown to be nonsense).
Colin Powell uses above "intelligence" in his UN speech, effectively creating a casus belli
for Bush II invasion/occupation of Iraq.
Don Rumsfeld claims the Iraq war will cost circa $ 70 billion, paid for with Iraqi oil
revenue. Reality check- the Iraq campaign will end up costing US taxpayers $4-6 trillion.
Immediately following the US invasion, US military disbands the Iraqi armed forces, many
of whom later join ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
The arrogance, dishonesty and outright incompetence of this campaign is breathtaking. Despite
spending significant lives and treasure, the US failed to obtain any imperial rent (oil concessions,
etc) from this war.
It should not be surprising that Putin, who has an excellent grasp of foreign affairs and
intellectually far above most, if not all US policy makers, will exploit this situation. Further,
ISIS can easily create major problems in Jordan, (where do they go once they are driven out of
Syria?) something the King of Jordan, is no doubt well aware. Bottom line- the 2003 US invasion
and occupation of Iraq may well go down as the biggest military and economic disaster in world
history.
Son of Captain Nemo
Regardless of your stance on whether the EU should be receptive to the millions of asylum seekers
fleeing the war-torn Mid-East, the simple fact is that if you remain in Syria, you are risking
your life on a daily basis, caught in the crossfire between a bewildering array of state actors,
rebel groups, and proxy armies, all with competing agendas.
And just when are Germans, Italians, French and the Eastern European wanna-bes going to demand
that NATO be dissolved and the American MIC permanently removed from their landscape(s) after
70 years of "hovering"?...
Lay the blame at the feet of those most responsible for this crisis who were coerced, bribed
and threatened if they didn't do with impunity what the American IC and military demanded them
to do and not the innocent begging for refuge while your government(s) assisted in the looting
operation of their sovereign Countries!
P.S.
If PIGIDA were ever to wage that kind of a campaign and align themselves with the "left" that
is already anti-American the U.S. will be finished!
"... The cast of characters includes President George W. Bush; L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, the first
civilian administrator of postwar Iraq; Douglas Feith, Bush's undersecretary of defense for policy;
Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's deputy secretary of defense; I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice
President Richard B. Cheney (and Cheney's proxy in these events); Walter Slocombe, who had been President
Clinton's undersecretary of defense for policy, and as such was Feith's predecessor; Richard Perle,
who was chairman of Bush's defense policy board; and General Jay Garner, whom Bremer replaced as the
leader of postwar Iraq. ..."
"... Regarding the de-Baathification order, both Bremer and Feith have written their own accounts
of the week leading up to it, and the slight discrepancy between their recollections is revealing in
what it tells us about Bremer-and consequently about Wolfowitz and Libby for having selected him. At
first blush, Bremer and Feith's justifications for the policy appear to dovetail, each comparing postwar
Iraq to postwar Nazi Germany. Bremer explains in a retrospective Washington Post op-ed, "What We Got
Right in Iraq," that "Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people
with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to
rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations." For his part, Feith goes a step further, reasoning
in his memoir War and Decision that the case for de-Baathification was even stronger because "The Nazis,
after all, had run Germany for a dozen years; the Baathists had tyrannized Iraq for more than thirty."
..."
"... Simply put, Bremer was tempted by headline-grabbing policies. He was unlikely to question any
action that offered opportunities to make bold gestures, which made him easy to influence. Indeed, another
quality of Bremer's professional persona that conspicuously emerges from accounts of the period is his
unwillingness to think for himself. ..."
"... What's even more surprising is how Bremer doesn't hide his intellectual dependence on Slocombe.
..."
"... Slocombe that "Although a Democrat, he has maintained good relations with Wolfowitz and is
described by some as a 'Democratic hawk,'" a remark that once again places Wolfowitz in close proximity
to Bremer and the disbanding order. ..."
In May 2003, in the wake of the Iraq War and the ousting of Saddam Hussein, events took place
that set the stage for the current chaos in the Middle East. Yet even most well-informed Americans
are unaware of how policies implemented by mid-level bureaucrats during the Bush administration unwittingly
unleashed forces that would ultimately lead to the juggernaut of the Islamic State.
The lesson is that it appears all too easy for outsiders working with relatively low-level appointees
to hijack the policy process. The Bay of Pigs invasion and Iran-Contra affair are familiar instances,
but the Iraq experience offers an even better illustration-not least because its consequences have
been even more disastrous.
The cast of characters includes President George W. Bush; L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, the first
civilian administrator of postwar Iraq; Douglas Feith, Bush's undersecretary of defense for policy;
Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's deputy secretary of defense; I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice
President Richard B. Cheney (and Cheney's proxy in these events); Walter Slocombe, who had been President
Clinton's undersecretary of defense for policy, and as such was Feith's predecessor; Richard Perle,
who was chairman of Bush's defense policy board; and General Jay Garner, whom Bremer replaced as
the leader of postwar Iraq.
On May 9, 2003, President Bush appointed Bremer to the top civilian post in Iraq. A career diplomat
who was recruited for this job by Wolfowitz and Libby, despite the fact that he had minimal experience
of the region and didn't speak Arabic, Bremer arrived in Baghdad on May 12 to take charge of the
Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA. In his first two weeks at his post, Bremer issued two orders
that would turn out to be momentous. Enacted on May 16, CPA Order Number 1 "de-Baathified" the Iraqi
government; on May 23, CPA Order Number 2 disbanded the Iraqi army. In short, Baath party members
were barred from participation in Iraq's new government and Saddam Hussein's soldiers lost their
jobs, taking their weapons with them.
The results of these policies become clear as we learn about the leadership of ISIS. The Washington
Post, for example, reported in April that "almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are
former Iraqi officers." In June, the New York Times identified a man "believed to be the head
of the Islamic State's military council," Fadel al-Hayali, as "a former lieutenant colonel in the
Iraqi military intelligence agency of President Saddam Hussein." Criticism of de-Baathification and
the disbanding of Iraq's army has been fierce, and the contribution these policies made to fueling
extremism was recognized even before the advent of the Islamic State. The New York Times reported
in 2007:
The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded
as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made
it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents.
This year the Washington Post summed up reactions to both orders when it cited a former
Iraqi general who asked bluntly, "When they dismantled the army, what did they expect those men to
do?" He explained that "they didn't de-Baathify people's minds, they just took away their jobs."
Writing about the disbanding policy in his memoir, Decision Points, George W. Bush acknowledges
the harmful results: "Thousands of armed men had just been told they were not wanted. Instead of
signing up for the new military, many joined the insurgency."
... ... ...
In his memoir, Bremer names the officials who approached him for his CPA job. He recounts telling
his wife that:
I had been contacted by Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and by
Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense. The Pentagon's original civil administration in 'post-hostility'
Iraq-the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, ORHA-lacked expertise in high-level
diplomatic negotiations and politics. … I had the requisite skills and experience for that position.
Regarding the de-Baathification order, both Bremer and Feith have written their own accounts
of the week leading up to it, and the slight discrepancy between their recollections is revealing
in what it tells us about Bremer-and consequently about Wolfowitz and Libby for having selected him.
At first blush, Bremer and Feith's justifications for the policy appear to dovetail, each comparing
postwar Iraq to postwar Nazi Germany. Bremer explains in a retrospective Washington Post op-ed,
"What We Got Right in Iraq," that "Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled
the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We
had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations." For his part, Feith goes
a step further, reasoning in his memoir War and Decision that the case for de-Baathification
was even stronger because "The Nazis, after all, had run Germany for a dozen years; the Baathists
had tyrannized Iraq for more than thirty."
Regarding the order itself, Bremer writes,
The day before I left for Iraq in May, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith presented
me with a draft law that would purge top Baathists from the Iraqi government and told me that
he planned to issue it immediately. Recognizing how important this step was, I asked Feith to
hold off, among other reasons, so I could discuss it with Iraqi leaders and CPA advisers. A week
later, after careful consideration, I issued this 'de-Baathification' decree, as drafted by the
Pentagon.
In contrast, Feith recalls that Bremer asked him to wait because "Bremer had thoughts of his own
on the subject, he said, and wanted to consider the de-Baathification policy carefully. As the new
CPA head, he thought he should announce and implement the policy himself."
The notion that he "carefully" considered the policy in his first week on the job, during which
he also travelled halfway around the globe, is highly questionable. Incidentally, Bremer's oxymoronic
statement-"a week later, after careful consideration"-mirrors a similar formulation of Wolfowitz's
about the disbanding order. Speaking to the Washington Post in November 2003, he said that
forming a new Iraqi army is "what we're trying to do at warp speed-but with careful vetting of the
people we're bringing on."
Simply put, Bremer was tempted by headline-grabbing policies. He was unlikely to question
any action that offered opportunities to make bold gestures, which made him easy to influence. Indeed,
another quality of Bremer's professional persona that conspicuously emerges from accounts of the
period is his unwillingness to think for himself. His memoir shows that he was eager to put
Jay Garner in his place from the moment he arrived in Iraq, yet he was unable to defend himself on
his own when challenged by Garner, who-according to Bob Woodward in his book State of Denial:
Bush at War, Part III-was "stunned" by the disbanding order. Woodward claims that when Garner
confronted Bremer about it, "Bremer, looking surprised, asked Garner to go see Walter B. Slocombe."
What's even more surprising is how Bremer doesn't hide his intellectual dependence on Slocombe.
He writes in his memoir:
To help untangle these problems, I was fortunate to have Walt Slocombe as Senior Adviser for
defense and security affairs. A brilliant former Rhodes Scholar from Princeton and a Harvard-educated
attorney, Walt had worked for Democratic administrations for decades on high-level strategic and
arms control issues.
In May 2003, the Washington Post noted of Slocombe that "Although a Democrat, he has
maintained good relations with Wolfowitz and is described by some as a 'Democratic hawk,'" a remark
that once again places Wolfowitz in close proximity to Bremer and the disbanding order. Sure
enough, in November 2003 the Washington Post reported:
The demobilization decision appears to have originated largely with Walter B. Slocombe, a former
undersecretary of defense appointed to oversee Iraqi security forces. He believed strongly in
the need to disband the army and felt that vanquished soldiers should not expect to be paid a
continuing salary. He said he developed the policy in discussions with Bremer, Feith and Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. 'This is not something that was dreamed up by somebody at
the last minute and done at the insistence of the people in Baghdad. It was discussed,' Slocombe
said. 'The critical point was that nobody argued that we shouldn't do this.'
Given that the president agreed to preserve the Iraqi army in the NSC meeting on March 12, Slocombe's
statement is evidence of a major policy inconsistency. In that meeting, Feith, at the request of
Donald Rumsfeld, gave a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Garner about keeping the Iraqi army;
in his own memoir, Feith writes, "No one at that National Security Council meeting in early March
spoke against the recommendation, and the President approved Garner's plan." But this is not what
happened. What happened instead was the reversal of Garner's plan, which Feith attributes to Slocombe
and Bremer:
Bremer and Slocombe argued that it would better serve U.S. interests to create an entirely
new Iraqi army: Sometimes it is easier to build something new than to refurbish a complex and
badly designed structure. In any event, Bremer and Slocombe reasoned, calling the old army back
might not succeed-but the attempt could cause grave political problems.
Over time, both Bremer and Slocombe have gone so far as to deny that the policies had any tangible
effects. Bremer claimed in the Washington Post that "Virtually all the old Baathist ministers
had fled before the decree was issued" and that "When the draftees saw which way the war was going,
they deserted and, like their officers, went back home." Likewise Slocombe stated in a PBS interview,
"We didn't disband the army. The army disbanded itself. … What we did do was to formally dissolve
all of the institutions of Saddam's security system. The intelligence, his military, his party structure,
his information and propaganda structure were formally disbanded and the property turned over to
the Coalition Provisional Authority."
Thus, according to Bremer and Slocombe's accounts, neither de-Baathification nor disbanding the
army achieved anything that hadn't already happened. When coupled with Bremer's assertion of "careful
consideration in one week" and Wolfowitz's claim of "careful vetting at warp speed," Bremer and Slocombe's
notion of "doing something that had already been done" creates a strong impression that they are
hiding something or trying to finesse history with wordplay. Perhaps Washington Post journalist
Rajiv Chandrasekaran provides the best possible explanation for this confusion in his book Imperial
Life in the Emerald City, when he writes, "Despite the leaflets instructing them to go home,
Slocombe had expected Iraqi soldiers to stay in their garrisons. Now he figured that calling them
back would cause even more problems." Chandrasekaran adds, "As far as Slocombe and Feith were concerned,
the Iraqi army had dissolved itself; formalizing the dissolution wouldn't contradict Bush's directive."
This suggests that Slocombe and Feith were communicating and that Slocombe was fully aware of the
policy the president had agreed to in the NSC meeting on March 12, yet he chose to disregard it.
♦♦♦
Following the disastrous decisions of May 2003, the blame game has been rife among neoconservative
policymakers. One of those who have expended the most energy dodging culpability is, predictably,
Bremer. In early 2007, he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and
the Washington Post reported: "Bremer proved unexpectedly agile at shifting blame: to administration
planners ('The planning before the war was inadequate'), his superiors in the Bush administration
('We never had sufficient support'), and the Iraqi people ('The country was in chaos-socially, politically
and economically')."
Bremer also wrote in May 2007 in the Washington Post, "I've grown weary of being a punching
bag over these decisions-particularly from critics who've never spent time in Iraq, don't understand
its complexities and can't explain what we should have done differently." (This declaration is ironic,
given Bremer's noted inability to justify the disbanding policy to General Garner.) On September
4, 2007, the New YorkTimes reported that Bremer had given the paper exculpatory letters
supposedly proving that George W. Bush confirmed the disbanding order. But the Times concluded,
"the letters do not show that [Bush] approved the order or even knew much about it. Mr. Bremer referred
only fleetingly to his plan midway through his three-page letter and offered no details." Moreover,
thepaper characterized Bremer's correspondence with Bush as "striking in its almost nonchalant
reference to a major decision that a number of American military officials in Iraq strongly opposed."
Defending himself on this point, Bremer claimed, "the policy was carefully considered by top civilian
and military members of the American government." And six months later Bremer told the paper, "It
was not my responsibility to do inter-agency coordination."
Feith and Slocombe have been similarly evasive when discussing President Bush's awareness of the
policies. The Los Angeles Times noted that "Feith was deeply involved in the decision-making
process at the time, working closely with Bush and Bremer," yet "Feith said he could not comment
about how involved the president was in the decision to change policy and dissolve the army. 'I don't
know all the details of who talked to who about that,' he said." For his part, Slocombe told PBS's
"Frontline,"
What happens in Washington in terms of how the [decisions are made]-'Go ahead and do this,
do that; don't do that, do this, even though you don't want to do it'-that's an internal Washington
coordination problem about which I know little. One of the interesting things about the job from
my point of view-all my other government experience basically had been in the Washington end,
with the interagencies process and setting the priorities-at the other end we got output. And
how the process worked in Washington I actually know very little about, because the channel was
from the president to Rumsfeld to Bremer.
It's a challenge to parse Slocombe's various statements. Here, in the space of two sentences,
he claims both that his government experience has mostly been in Washington and that he doesn't know
how Washington works. As mentioned earlier, he had previously told the Washington Post that
the disbanding order was not "done at the insistence of the people in Baghdad"-in other words, the
decision was made in Washington. The inconsistency of his accounts from year to year, and even in
the same interview, adds to an aura of concealment.
This further illustrates the disconnect between what was decided by the NSC in Washington in March
and by the CPA in Iraq in May. In his memoir, Feith notes that although he supported the disbanding
policy, "the decision became associated with a number of unnecessary problems, including the apparent
lack of interagency review."
... ... ...
John Hay is a former executive branch official under Republican administrations.
"... If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn't been right on hardly anything and his prediction of what is going to happen, reasons for going over there and obviously this is not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence and destruction over there, to call for a change in policy in Iraq. ..."
"... One measure of the impact of the Iraq War is the precipitous drop in public support for the United States in Muslim countries. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, saw popular approval for the United States drop from 25 percent in 2002 to 1 percent in 2003. In Lebanon during the same period, favorable views of the United States dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent, and in the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia, favorable views plummeted from 61 percent to 15 percent. ..."
"... One of the cell's members, Younis Elian Abu Jarir, a taxi driver whose job was to ferry the group around, stated in a confession offered as evidence in court that they convinced me of the need for holy war against the Jews, Americans, Italians, and other nationalities that participated in the occupation of Iraq. ..."
President Carter Rips Cheney Over Iraq: 'His Batting Average Is Abysmally Low'
Last week, Vice President Cheney attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. John Murtha
(D-PA) for supporting Iraq redeployment. He charged that their plan would "validate the al Qaeda
strategy."
Today, former President Jimmy Carter rejected Cheney's charges, stating that calls for a change
of policy in Iraq are "not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence
and destruction over there." He added, "If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said
for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn't
been right on hardly anything."
STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice President Cheney this week has been very harsh on those kinds of measures
in the Congress.
[CHENEY CLIP]: If we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all
we'll do is validate the al Qaeda strategy. The al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American
people.
CARTER: If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four
years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn't been right on hardly anything
and his prediction of what is going to happen, reasons for going over there and obviously this is
not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence and destruction over
there, to call for a change in policy in Iraq.
^^^^^
.
Saundra Hummer
February 26th, 2007, 05:34 PM
.
.........
Iraq 101:
The Iraq Effect
The War in Iraq and Its Impact on the War on Terrorism - Pg. 1
All right, no more excuses, people. After four years in Iraq, it's time to get serious. We've
spent too long goofing off, waiting to be saved by the bell, praying that we won't get asked a stumper
like, "What's the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?" Okay, even the head of the House intelligence
committee doesn't know that one. All the more reason to start boning up on what we-and our leaders-should
have learned back before they signed us up for this crash course in Middle Eastern geopolitics. And
while we're at it, let's do the math on what the war really costs in blood and dollars. It's time
for our own Iraq study group. Yes, there will be a test, and we can't afford to fail.
March 01 , 2007
By Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank
Research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law. Bergen is also a senior
fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.
"If we were not fighting and destroying this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would
be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our own borders. By fighting these
terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people." So
said President Bush on November 30, 2005, refining his earlier call to "bring them on." Jihadist
terrorists, the administration's argument went, would be drawn to Iraq like moths to a flame, and
would perish there rather than wreak havoc elsewhere in the world.
The president's argument conveyed two important assumptions: first, that the threat of jihadist
terrorism to U.S. interests would have been greater without the war in Iraq, and second, that the
war is reducing the overall global pool of terrorists. However, the White House has never cited any
evidence for either of these assumptions, and none appears to be publicly available.
The administration's own National Intelligence Estimate on "Trends in Global Terrorism: implications
for the United States," circulated within the government in April 2006 and partially declassified
in October, states that "the Iraq War has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists...and is shaping
a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives."
Yet administration officials have continued to suggest that there is no evidence any greater jihadist
threat exists as a result of the Iraq War. "Are more terrorists being created in the world?" then-Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rhetorically asked during a press conference in September. "We don't know.
The world doesn't know. There are not good metrics to determine how many people are being trained
in a radical madrasa school in some country." In January 2007 Director of National Intelligence John
Negroponte in congressional testimony stated that he was "not certain" that the Iraq War had been
a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and played down the likely impact of the war on jihadists worldwide:
"I wouldn't say there has been a widespread growth in Islamic extremism beyond Iraq. I really wouldn't."
Indeed, though what we will call "The Iraq Effect" is a crucial matter for U.S. national security,
we have found no statistical documentation of its existence and gravity, at least in the public domain.
In this report, we have undertaken what we believe to be the first such study, using information
from the world's premier database on global terrorism. The results are being published for the first
time by Mother Jones, the news and investigative magazine, as part of a broader "Iraq 101" package
in the magazine's March/April 2007 issue.
<< Breaking The Army << >> The Iraq Effect Pg. 2 >> Iraq Effect (continued)
Our study shows that the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate
of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands
of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in
the rest of the world have increased by more than one-third.
We are not making the argument that without the Iraq War, jihadist terrorism would not exist,
but our study shows that the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of the Al Qaeda ideological
virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul,
and from Madrid to the Red Sea.
In our study we focused on the following questions:
Has jihadist terrorism gone up or down around the world since the invasion of Iraq?
What has been the trend if terrorist incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan (the military fronts of the
"war on terrorism") are excluded?
Has terrorism explicitly directed at the United States and its allies also increased?
In order to zero in on The Iraq Effect, we focused on the rate of terrorist attacks in two time periods:
September 12, 2001, to March 20, 2003 (the day of the Iraq invasion), and March 21, 2003, to September
30, 2006. Extending the data set before 9/11 would risk distorting the results, because the rate
of attacks by jihadist groups jumped considerably after 9/11 as jihadist terrorists took inspiration
from the events of that terrible day.
We first determined which terrorist organizations should be classified as jihadist. We included
in this group Sunni extremist groups affiliated with or sympathetic to the ideology of Al Qaeda.
We decided to exclude terrorist attacks by Palestinian groups, as they depend largely on factors
particular to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Our study draws its data from the MIPT-RAND Terrorism database (available at terrorismknowledgebase.org),
which is widely considered to be the best publicly available database on terrorism incidents. RAND
defines a terrorist attack as an attack on a civilian entity designed to promote fear or alarm and
further a particular political agenda. In our study we only included attacks that caused at least
one fatality and were attributed by RAND to a known jihadist group. In some terrorist attacks, and
this is especially the case in Iraq, RAND has not been able to attribute a particular attack to a
known jihadist group. Therefore our study likely understates the extent of jihadist terrorism in
Iraq and around the world.
Our study yields one resounding finding: The rate of terrorist attacks around the world by jihadist
groups and the rate of fatalities in those attacks increased dramatically after the invasion of Iraq.
Globally there was a 607 percent rise in the average yearly incidence of attacks (28.3 attacks per
year before and 199.8 after) and a 237 percent rise in the average fatality rate (from 501 to 1,689
deaths per year). A large part of this rise occurred in Iraq, which accounts for fully half of the
global total of jihadist terrorist attacks in the post-Iraq War period. But even excluding Iraq,
the average yearly number of jihadist terrorist attacks and resulting fatalities still rose sharply
around the world by 265 percent and 58 percent respectively.
And even when attacks in both Afghanistan and Iraq (the two countries that together account for
80 percent of attacks and 67 percent of deaths since the invasion of Iraq) are excluded, there has
still been a significant rise in jihadist terrorism elsewhere--a 35 percent increase in the number
of jihadist terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, from 27.6 to 37 a year, with a 12
percent rise in fatalities from 496 to 554 per year.
Of course, just because jihadist terrorism has risen in the period after the invasion of Iraq,
it does not follow that events in Iraq itself caused the change. For example, a rise in attacks in
the Kashmir conflict and the Chechen separatist war against Russian forces may have nothing to do
with the war in Iraq. But the most direct test of The Iraq Effect--whether the United States and
its allies have suffered more jihadist terrorism after the invasion than before--shows that the rate
of jihadist attacks on Western interests and citizens around the world (outside of Afghanistan and
Iraq) has risen by a quarter, from 7.2 to 9 a year, while the yearly fatality rate in these attacks
has increased by 4 percent from 191 to 198.
One of the few positive findings of our study is that only 18 American civilians (not counting
civilian contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan) have been killed by jihadist groups since the war in
Iraq began. But that number is still significantly higher than the four American civilians who were
killed in attacks attributed to jihadist groups in the period between 9/11 and the Iraq War. It was
the capture and killing of much of Al Qaeda's leadership after 9/11 and the breakup of its training
camp facilities in Afghanistan--not the war in Iraq--that prevented Al Qaeda from successfully launching
attacks on American targets on the scale it did in the years before 9/11.
Also undermining the argument that Al Qaeda and like-minded groups are being distracted from plotting
against Western targets are the dangerous, anti-American plots that have arisen since the start of
the Iraq War. Jihadist terrorists have attacked key American allies since the Iraq conflict began,
mounting multiple bombings in London that killed 52 in July 2005, and attacks in Madrid in 2004 that
killed 191. Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London bombers, stated in his videotaped suicide "will,"
"What have you witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and
become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq." There have been six jihadist
attacks on the home soil of the United States' NATO allies (including Turkey) in the period after
the invasion of Iraq, whereas there were none in the 18 months following 9/11; and, of course, the
plan uncovered in London in August 2006 to smuggle liquid explosives onto U.S. airliners, had it
succeeded, would have killed thousands.
Al Qaeda has not let the Iraq War distract it from targeting the United States and her allies.
In a January 19, 2006 audiotape, Osama bin Laden himself refuted President Bush's argument that Iraq
had distracted and diverted Al Qaeda: "The reality shows that that the war against America and its
allies has not remained limited to Iraq, as he claims, but rather, that Iraq has become a source
and attraction and recruitment of qualified people.... As for the delay in similar [terrorist] operations
in America, [the] operations are being prepared, and you will witness them, in your own land, as
soon as preparations are complete."
Ayman al Zawahiri echoed bin Laden's words in a March 4, 2006, videotape broadcast by Al Jazeera
calling for jihadists to launch attacks on the home soil of Western countries: "[Muslims have to]
inflict losses on the crusader West, especially to its economic infrastructure with strikes that
would make it bleed for years. The strikes on New York, Washington, Madrid, and London are the best
examples.
One measure of the impact of the Iraq War is the precipitous drop in public support for the United
States in Muslim countries. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, saw popular approval for the United States drop
from 25 percent in 2002 to 1 percent in 2003. In Lebanon during the same period, favorable views
of the United States dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent, and in the world's largest Muslim country,
Indonesia, favorable views plummeted from 61 percent to 15 percent. Disliking the United States does
not make you a terrorist, but clearly the pool of Muslims who dislike the United States has grown
by hundreds of millions since the Iraq War began. The United States' plummeting popularity does not
suggest active popular support for jihadist terrorists but it does imply some sympathy with their
anti-American posture, which means a significant swath of the Muslim population cannot be relied
on as an effective party in counter-terrorism/insurgency measures. And so, popular contempt for U.S.
policy has become a force multiplier for Islamist militants.
The Iraq War has also encouraged Muslim youth around the world to join jihadist groups, not necessarily
directly tied to Al Qaeda but often motivated by a similar ideology. The Iraq War allowed Al Qaeda,
which was on the ropes in 2002 after the United States had captured or killed two-thirds of its leadership,
to reinvent itself as a broader movement because Al Qaeda's central message--that the United States
is at war with Islam--was judged by significant numbers of Muslims to have been corroborated by the
war in Iraq. And compounding this, the wide dissemination of the exploits of jihadist groups in Iraq
following the invasion energized potential and actual jihadists across the world.
How exactly has The Iraq Effect played out in different parts of the world? The effect has not
been uniform. Europe, the Arab world, and Afghanistan all saw major rises in jihadist terrorism in
the period after the invasion of Iraq, while Pakistan and India and the Chechnya/Russia front saw
only smaller increases in jihadist terrorism. And in Southeast Asia, attacks and killings by jihadist
groups fell by over 60 percent in the period after the Iraq War. The strength or weakness of The
Iraq Effect on jihadist terrorism in a particular country seems to be influenced by four factors:
(1) if the country itself has troops in Iraq; (2) geographical proximity to Iraq; (3) the degree
of identification with Iraq's Arabs felt in the country; and (4) the level of exchanges of ideas
or personnel with Iraqi jihadist groups. This may explain why jihadist groups in Europe, Arab countries,
and Afghanistan were more affected by the Iraq War than groups in other regions. Europe, unlike Kashmir,
Chechnya, and Southeast Asia for example, contains several countries that are part of the coalition
in Iraq. It is relatively geographically close to the Arab world and has a large Arab-Muslim diaspora
from which jihadists have recruited.
European intelligence services are deeply concerned about the effect of the Iraq War. For example,
Dame Eliza Mannigham-Buller, the head of Britain's MI5, stated on November 10, 2006, "In Iraq, attacks
are regularly videoed and the footage is downloaded onto the Internet [and] chillingly we see the
results here. Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. We are aware of numerous plots
to kill people and damage our economy...30 that we know of. [The] threat is serious, is growing,
and, I believe, will be with us for a generation." Startlingly, a recent poll found that a quarter
of British Muslims believe that the July 7, 2005, London bombings were justifiable because of British
foreign policy, bearing out Dame Eliza's concern about a new generation of radicals in the United
Kingdom.
While Islamist militants in Europe are mobilized by a series of grievances such as Palestine,
Afghanistan, the Kashmir conflict, and Chechnya, no issue has resonated more in radical circles and
on Islamist websites than the war in Iraq. This can be seen in the skyrocketing rate of jihadist
terrorist attacks around the Arab world outside of Iraq. There have been 37 attacks in Arab countries
outside of Iraq since the invasion, while there were only three in the period between 9/11 and March
2003. The rate of attacks in Arab countries jumped by 445 percent since the Iraq invasion, while
the rate of killings rose by 783 percent. The November 9, 2005 bombings of three American hotels
in Amman, Jordan, that killed 60, an operation directed by Abu Musab al Zarqawi's Al Qaeda in Iraq
network, was the most direct manifestation of The Iraq Effect in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, in
particular, has seen an upsurge in jihadist terrorism since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There were
no jihadist terrorist attacks between 9/11 and the Iraq War but 12 in the period since. The reason
for the surge in terrorism was a decision taken by Al Qaeda's Saudi branch in the spring of 2003
to launch a wave of attacks (primarily at Western targets) to undermine the Saudi royal family. These
attacks were initiated on May 12, 2003 with the bombing of Western compounds in Riyadh, killing 34,
including 10 Americans. While Saudi authorities believe that planning and training for the operation
predated the war in Iraq, the timing of the attack, just weeks after the U.S invasion is striking.
The fact that the Iraq War radicalized some young Saudis is underlined by studies showing that
more Saudis have conducted suicide operations in Iraq than any other nationality. For instance, Mohammed
Hafez, a visiting professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, in a study of the 101 identified
suicide attackers in Iraq from March 2003 to February 2006, found that more than 40 percent were
Saudi. This jihadist energy was not just transferred over the Saudi border into Iraq. It also contributed
to attacks in the Kingdom. The group that beheaded the American contractor Paul Johnson in Riyadh
in June 2004 called itself the "Al Fallujah brigade of Al Qaeda" and claimed that it had carried
out the killing in part to avenge the actions of "disbelievers" in Iraq. In January 2004 Al Qaeda's
Saudi affiliate launched Al Battar, an online training magazine specifically directed at young Saudis
interested in fighting their regime. The achievements of jihadists in Iraq figured prominently in
its pages. Indeed, a contributor to the first issue of Al Battar argued that the Iraq War had made
jihad "a commandment" for Saudi Arabians " the Islamic nation is today in acute conflict with the
Crusaders."
The Iraq War had a strong impact in other Arab countries too. Daily images aired by Al Jazeera
and other channels of suffering Iraqis enraged the Arab street and strengthened the hands of radicals
everywhere. In Egypt, the Iraq War has contributed to a recent wave of attacks by small, self-generated
groups. A Sinai-based jihadist group carried out coordinated bombing attacks on Red Sea resorts popular
with Western tourists at Taba in October 2004, at Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2005, and at Dahab in April
2006, killing a total of more than 120.
One of the cell's members, Younis Elian Abu Jarir, a taxi driver whose job was to ferry the group
around, stated in a confession offered as evidence in court that "they convinced me of the need for
holy war against the Jews, Americans, Italians, and other nationalities that participated in the
occupation of Iraq." Osama Rushdi, a former spokesman of the Egyptian terrorist group Gamma Islamiyya
now living in London, told us that while attacks in the Sinai were partly directed at the Egyptian
regime, they appeared to be primarily anti-Western in motivation: "The Iraq War contributed to the
negative feelings of the Sinai group. Before the Iraq War, most Egyptians did not have a negative
feeling towards American policy. Now almost all are opposed to American policy."
Since the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan has suffered 219 jihadist terrorist attacks that can be attributed
to a particular group, resulting in the deaths of 802 civilians. The fact that the Taliban only conducted
its first terrorist attacks in September 2003, a few months after the invasion of Iraq, is significant.
International forces had already been stationed in the country for two years before the Taliban began
to specifically target the U.S.-backed Karzai government and civilians sympathetic to it. This points
to a link between events in Iraq and the initiation of the Taliban's terrorist campaign in Afghanistan.
True, local dynamics form part of the explanation for the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But the use of terrorism, particularly suicide attacks, by the Taliban is an innovation drawn from
the Iraqi theater. Hekmat Karzai, an Afghan terrorism researcher, points out that suicide bombings
were virtually unknown in Afghanistan until 2005. In 2006, Karzai says, there were 118 such attacks,
more than there had been in the entire history of the country. Internet sites have helped spread
the tactics of Iraqi jihadists. In 2005 the "Media Committee of the Al Qaeda Mujahideen in Afghanistan"
launched an online magazine called Vanguards of Kharasan, which includes articles on what Afghan
fighters can learn from Coalition and jihadist strategies in Iraq. Abdul Majid Abdul Majed, a contributor
to the April 2006 issue of the magazine, argued for an expansion in suicide operations, citing the
effectiveness of jihadist operations in Iraq.
Mullah Dadullah, a key Taliban commander, gave an interview to Al Jazeera in 2006 in which he
explained how the Iraq War has influenced the Taliban. Dadullah noted that "we have 'give and take'
with the mujahideen in Iraq." Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who is writing bin Laden's biography,
told us that young men traveled from the Afghan province of Khost to "on-the-job training" in Iraq
in 2004. "They came back with lots of CDs which were full of military actions against U.S. troops
in the Mosul, Fallujah, and Baghdad areas. I think suicide bombing was introduced in Afghanistan
and Pakistan after local boys came back after spending some time in Iraq. I met a Taliban commander,
Mullah Mannan, last year in Zabul who told me that he was trained in Iraq by Zarqawi along with many
Pakistani tribals."
Propaganda circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan about American "atrocities" and jihadist "heroics"
has also energized the Taliban, encouraging a previously somewhat isolated movement to see itself
as part of a wider struggle. Our study found a striking correlation in how terrorist campaigns intensified
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rate of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan gathered pace in the summer
of 2005, a half year after a similar increase in Iraq, and in 2006 the rate of attacks in both countries
rose in tandem to new, unprecedented levels.
While the Iraq War has had a strong effect on the rise in terrorism in Afghanistan, it appears
to have played less of a role on jihadists operating in Pakistan and India, though terrorism did
rise in those countries following the invasion of Iraq. (Of course, neither Pakistan nor India has
foreign troops on its soil, which accounts, in part, for the high terrorism figures in Afghanistan.)
The rate of jihadist attacks rose by 21 percent while the fatality rate rose by 19 percent. There
were 52 attacks after the Iraq invasion, killing 489 civilians, while there were 19 in the period
before, killing 182. The local dynamics of the Kashmir conflict, tensions between India and Pakistan,
and the resurfacing of the Taliban in eastern Pakistan likely played a large role here. That said,
there is evidence that the Iraq War did energize jihadists in Pakistan. Hamid Mir says, "Iraq not
only radicalized the Pakistani tribals [near the Afghan border] but it offered them the opportunity
for them to go to Iraq via Iran to get on-the-job training."
There is also evidence that the Iraq War had some impact in other areas of Pakistan. In the summer
of 2004, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba, told followers
in Lahore, "Islam is in grave danger, and the mujahideen are fighting to keep its glory. They are
fighting the forces of evil in Iraq in extremely difficult circumstances. We should send mujahideen
from Pakistan to help them." And Pakistan, inasmuch as it has become Al Qaeda's new base for training
and planning attacks, has become the location where significant numbers of would-be jihadists--including
some young British Pakistanis such as the London suicide bombers, radicalized in part by the Iraq
War--have traveled to learn bomb-making skills.
In Russia and Chechnya, the Iraq War appears to have had less of an impact than on other jihadist
fronts. This is unsurprising given the fact that jihadist groups in the region are preoccupied by
a separatist war against the Russian military. Whilst following the invasion of Iraq there was a
rise in the number of attacks by Chechen groups that share a similar ideology with Al Qaeda, the
total rate of fatalities did not go up. The Iraq War does seem to have diverted some jihadists from
the Russian/Chechen front: Arab fighters who might have previously gone to Chechnya now have a cause
at their own doorstep, while funds from Arab donors increasingly have gone to the Iraqi jihad.
Southeast Asia has been the one region in the world in which jihadist terrorism has declined significantly
in the period since the invasion of Iraq. There was a 67 percent drop in the rate of attacks (from
10.5 to 3.5 attacks per year) in the post-invasion period and a 69 percent drop in the rate of fatalities
(from 201 to 62 fatalities per year). And there has been no bombing on the scale of the October 2002
Bali nightclub attack that killed more than 200. However, jihadist terrorism in Southeast Asia has
declined in spite, not because of, the Iraq War. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was deeply unpopular in
the region, as demonstrated by the poll finding that only 15 percent of Indonesians had a favorable
view of the United States in 2003. But the negative impact of the Iraq War on public opinion was
mitigated by U.S. efforts to aid the region in the wake of the devastating tsunami of December 2004--Pew
opinion surveys have shown that the number of those with favorable views towards the United States
in Indonesia crept above 30 percent in 2005 and 2006.
However, the main reason for the decline of jihadist terrorism in Southeast Asia has been the
successful crackdown by local authorities on jihadist groups and their growing unpopularity with
the general population. The August 2003 capture of Hambali, Jemaa Islamiya's operational commander,
was key to degrading the group's capacity to launch attacks as was the arrest of hundreds of Jemaa
Islamiya and Abu Sayyaf operatives in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore in the years
after the October 2002 Bali bombings. Those arrested included most of those who planned the Bali
attacks, as well as former instructors at Jemaa Islamiya camps and individuals involved in financing
attacks. And in November 2005 Indonesian security services killed Jemaa Islamiya master bomber Azhari
bin Husin in a shoot-out. The second wave of Bali attacks in 2005 killed mostly Indonesians and created
a popular backlash against jihadist groups in Indonesia, degrading their ability to recruit operatives.
And Muslim leaders such as Masdar Farid Masudi, the deputy leader of the country's largest Islamic
group, condemned the bombings: "If the perpetrators are Muslims, their sentences must be multiplied
because they have tarnished the sacredness of their religion and smeared its followers worldwide."
Iraq Effect (continued)
Our survey shows that the Iraq conflict has motivated jihadists around the world to see their particular
struggle as part of a wider global jihad fought on behalf of the Islamic ummah, the global community
of Muslim believers. The Iraq War had a strong impact in jihadist circles in the Arab world and Europe,
but also on the Taliban, which previously had been quite insulated from events elsewhere in the Muslim
world. By energizing the jihadist groups, the Iraq conflict acted as a catalyst for the increasing
globalization of the jihadist cause, a trend that should be deeply troubling for American policymakers.
In the late 1990s, bin Laden pushed a message of a global jihad and attracted recruits from around
the Muslim world to train and fight in Afghanistan. The Iraq War has made bin Laden's message of
global struggle even more persuasive to militants. Over the past three years, Iraq has attracted
thousands of foreign fighters who have been responsible for the majority of suicide attacks in the
country. Those attacks have had an enormous strategic impact; for instance, getting the United Nations
to pull out of Iraq and sparking the Iraqi civil war.
Emblematic of the problem is Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman who on November 9, 2005,
near the town of Baquba in central Iraq, detonated a bomb as she drove past an American patrol. In
the bomb crater, investigators found travel documents that showed that she had arrived in Iraq from
Belgium just a few weeks earlier with her Moroccan-Belgian husband Hissam Goris. The couple had been
recruited by "Al Qaeda in Iraq." Goris would die the following day, shot by American forces as he
prepared to launch a suicide attack near Fallujah.
The story of Muriel Degauque and her husband is part of a trend that Harvard terrorism researcher
Assaf Moghadam terms the "globalization of martyrdom." The London suicide bombings in July 2005 revealed
the surprising willingness of four British citizens to die to protest the United Kingdom's role in
the Coalition in Iraq; Muriel Degauque, for her part, was willing to die for the jihadist cause in
a country in which she was a stranger.
This challenges some existing conceptions of the motivations behind suicide attacks. In 2005 University
of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape published a much-commented-upon study of suicide bombing,
"Dying to Win," in which he used a mass of data about previous suicide bombing campaigns to argue
that they principally occurred "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory
that the terrorists consider to be their homeland." (Of course, terrorism directed against totalitarian
regimes rarely occurs because such regimes are police states and are unresponsive to public opinion.)
Pape also argued that while religion might aggravate campaigns of suicide terrorism, such campaigns
had also been undertaken by secular groups, most notably the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, whose most
spectacular success was the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide
attacker in 1991.
Pape's findings may explain the actions and motivations of terrorist groups in countries such
as Sri Lanka, but his principal claim that campaigns of suicide terrorism are generally nationalist
struggles to liberate occupied lands that have little to do with religious belief does not survive
contact with the reality of what is going on today in Iraq. The most extensive suicide campaign in
history is being conducted in Iraq largely by foreigners animated by the deeply-held religious belief
that they must liberate a Muslim land from the "infidel" occupiers.
While Iraqis make up the great bulk of the insurgents, several studies have shown that the suicide
attackers in Iraq are generally foreigners, while only a small proportion are Iraqi. (Indeed, the
most feared terrorist leader in Iraq until his death earlier this year, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was
a Jordanian.) The Israeli researcher Reuven Paz, using information posted on Al Qaeda-linked websites
between October 2004 and March 2005, found that of the 33 suicide attacks listed, 23 were conducted
by Saudis, and only 1 by an Iraqi. Similarly, in June 2005 the Search for International Terrorist
Entities (SITE) Institute of Washington, D.C. found by tracking both jihadist websites and media
reports that of the 199 Sunni extremists who had died in Iraq either in suicide attacks or in action
against Coalition or Iraqi forces, 104 were from Saudi Arabia and only 21 from Iraq. The rest were
predominantly from countries around the Middle East. And Mohammed Hafez in his previously cited study
of the 101 "known" suicide bombers in Iraq found that while 44 were Saudi and 8 were from Italy (!),
only 7 were from Iraq.
In congressional testimony this past November, CIA Director General Michael Hayden said that "an
overwhelming percentage of the suicide bombers are foreign." A senior U.S. military intelligence
official told us that a worrisome recent trend is the rising number of North Africans who have joined
the ranks of foreign fighters in Iraq, whose number General Hayden pegged at 1,300 during his November
congressional testimony. A Saudi official also confirmed to us the rising number of North Africans
who are being drawn into the Iraq War.
The globalization of jihad and martyrdom, accelerated to a significant degree by the Iraq War, has
some disquieting implications for American security in the future. First, it has energized jihadist
groups generally; second, not all foreign fighters attracted to Iraq will die there. In fact there
is evidence that some jihadists are already leaving Iraq to operate elsewhere. Saudi Arabia has made
a number of arrests of fighters coming back from Iraq, and Jordanian intelligence sources say that
300 fighters have returned to Jordan from Iraq. As far away as Belgium, authorities have indicated
that Younis Lekili, an alleged member of the cell that recruited Muriel Degauque, had previously
traveled to fight in Iraq, where he lost his leg. (Lekili is awaiting trial in Belgium.)
German, French, and Dutch intelligence officials have estimated that there are dozens of their
citizens returning from the Iraq theater, and some appear to have been determined to carry out attacks
on their return to Europe. For example, French police arrested Hamid Bach, a French citizen of Moroccan
descent, in June 2005 in Montpellier, several months after he returned from a staging camp for Iraq
War recruits in Syria. According to French authorities, Bach's handlers there instructed him to assist
with plotting terrorist attacks in Italy. Back in France, Bach is alleged to have bought significant
quantities of hydrogen peroxide and to have looked up details on explosives and detonators online.
(Bach is awaiting trial in France.)
This "blowback" trend will greatly increase when the war eventually winds down in Iraq. In the
short term the countries most at risk are those whose citizens have traveled to fight in Iraq, in
particular Arab countries bordering Iraq. Jamal Khashoggi, a leading Saudi expert on jihadist groups,
told us that "while Iraq brought new blood into the Al Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia, this was
at a time when the network was being dismantled. Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia could not accommodate these
recruits so they sent them to Iraq to train them, motivate them, and prepare them for a future wave
of attacks in the Kingdom. It is a deep worry to Saudi authorities that Saudis who have gone to Iraq
will come back." That's a scenario for which Khashoggi says Saudi security forces are painstakingly
preparing.
Several U.S. citizens have tried to involve themselves in the Iraq jihad. In December an American
was arrested in Cairo, Egypt, accused of being part of a cell plotting terrorist attacks in Iraq.
And in February 2006 three Americans from Toledo, Ohio, were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill
U.S. military personnel in Iraq. According to the FBI, one of these individuals, Mohammad Zaki Amawi,
was in contact with an Arab jihadist group sending fighters to Iraq and tried unsuccessfully to cross
the border into Iraq. However, to date there is no evidence of Americans actually fighting in Iraq
so the number of returnees to the United States is likely to be small. The larger risk is that jihadists
will migrate from Iraq to Western countries, a trend that will be accelerated if, as happened following
the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, those fighters are not allowed to return to their home countries.
Already terrorist groups in Iraq may be in a position to start sending funds to other jihadist
fronts. According to a U.S. government report leaked to the New York Times in November 2006, the
fact that insurgent and terrorist groups are raising up to $200 million a year from various illegal
activities such as kidnapping and oil theft in Iraq means that they "may have surplus funds with
which to support other terrorist organizations outside Iraq." Indeed, a letter from Al Qaeda's No.
2, Ayman al Zawahiri, to Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi in July 2005 contained this
revealing request: "Many of the [funding] lines have been cut off. Because of this we need a payment
while new lines are being opened. So if you're capable of sending a payment of approximately one
hundred thousand we'll be very grateful to you."
The "globalization of martyrdom" prompted by the Iraq War has not only attracted foreign fighters
to die in Iraq (we record 148 suicide-terrorist attacks in Iraq credited to an identified jihadist
group) but has also encouraged jihadists to conduct many more suicide operations elsewhere. Since
the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there has been a 246 percent rise in the rate of suicide attacks (6 before
and 47 after) by jihadist groups outside of Iraq and a 24 percent increase in the corresponding fatality
rate. Even excluding Afghanistan, there has been a 150 percent rise in the rate of suicide attacks
and a 14 percent increase in the rate of fatalities attributable to jihadists worldwide. The reasons
for the spread of suicide bombing attacks in other jihadist theaters are complex but the success
of these tactics in Iraq, the lionization that Iraqi martyrs receive on jihadist websites, and the
increase in feelings of anger and frustration caused by images of the Iraq War have all likely contributed
significantly. The spread of suicide bombings should be of great concern to the United States in
defending its interests and citizens around the world, because they are virtually impossible to defend
against.
The Iraq War has also encouraged the spread of more hardline forms of jihad (the corollary to
an increase in suicide bombing). Anger and frustration over Iraq has increased the popularity, especially
among young militants, of a hardcore takfiri ideology that is deeply intolerant of divergent interpretations
of Islam and highly tolerant of extreme forms of violence. The visceral anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism,
and anti-Shiism widely circulated among the Internet circles around ideologues such as Abu Muhammad
al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada (both Jordanian-Palestinian mentors to Abu Musab al Zarqawi) and Al Qaeda's
Syrian hawk, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, are even more extreme, unlikely as it may sound, than the statements
of bin Laden himself.
Our study shows just how counterproductive the Iraq War has been to the war on terrorism. The
most recent State Department report on global terrorism states that the goal of the United States
is to identify, target, and prevent the spread of "jihadist groups focused on attacking the United
States or its allies [and those groups that] view governments and leaders in the Muslim world as
their primary targets." Yet, since the invasion of Iraq, attacks by such groups have risen more than
sevenfold around the world. And though few Americans have been killed by jihadist terrorists in the
past three years it is wishful thinking to believe that this will continue to be the case, given
the continued determination of militant jihadists to target the country they see as their main enemy.
We will be living with the consequences of the Iraq debacle for more than a decade.
Special thanks to Mike Torres and Zach Stern at NYU and Kim Cragin and Drew Curiel at RAND.
<< The Iraq Effect Pg.5 << >> The Data: The Iraq War and Jihadist Terrorism >>
Go on-site for sources, charts, etc. Just click on the following URLs:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/iraq_101.html
"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile
was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn,
self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his
nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
Reg Morrison: "The human brain remains a piece of stone-age machinery, however you look at it,
and no amount of culture can make it otherwise. Genetically speaking we are a finished
product, not a prototype. What you see is what you get-there will be no bright utopian
future."- The Spirit in the Gene, page 247.
Haus-Targaryen
So we have Russian soldiers on the ground fighting ISIS & the "moderate" rebels alongside
Iran & Syria -- while Russia blows said head choppers to smithereens. While the US will have
soldiers on the ground fighting Assad & Hezbollah blowing them up from the air.
What happens when Russia troops take on American troops, thinking they are ISIS and the
Americans thinking they are Hezbollah. What happens then? (Then they call air strikes on one
another and everyone figures out shit just went real wrong really quickly).
HowdyDoody
"What happens when Russia troops take on American troops, thinking they are ISIS and the
Americans thinking they are Hezbollah" That's a feature, not a bug. And that is why the
Russians are calling out on it beforehand.
ZippyDooDah
Russia is providing air cover to Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, so that the USAF can't bomb
the Shiite ground troops. America is providing ground troops in Syria to embed with "rebels,"
so that Russia can't bomb the Sunni ground troops. Proxy war at its most insane, cause it just
went beyond proxies.
The Sunni-Shiite divide is centuries old, and not a fight we should ever have gotten involved
with. Dumbassery at its most insane.
You might think the U.S. military might someday rebel against this kind of wanton waste of its
resources. But no, I guess we are just going to grind ourselves away to nothing in the Middle
East meat chopper.
TheReplacement
Wikileaks Ukraine has leaked a conversation regarding planning false flag shoot downs that
involved a certain sitting US Senator who happens to have met with the Nazis in Ukraine and
the terrorists in Syria. I believe the plan is to shoot down a US/NATO jet and then a Russian.
lakecity55
Russia needs to state the legal case before the UN Security Council and force the USG to
veto the Resolution, thus making Vichy DC even more in the wrong internationally!
Paveway IV
Russia was already holding the UN's feet to the fire. Things just got a whole lot worse in
the last two days.
The Golan Heights is not Israeli territory according to the UN - ever since 1949. They
recognize Israel is occupying it, but under international law (such as it were) the Golan
Heights are still Syrian soverign territory. Technically, Syria and Israel are still at war.
They are only maintaining a cease-fire/truce along a UNDOF neutral zone (= safe zone = no-fly
zone) established in 1974. The 1974 truce didnt' 'give' Israel the Golan land. It was simply
an agreement that Israel and Syria would stop attacking eachother and stay out of a neutral
zone between each country's armies.
Herein lies the problem: Israel has been directly supporting al Nusra and ISIS forces hiding
inside that neutral zone. The place is so over-run with head-choppers that the 1300 UN
observers LEFT their own camps in that zone and have relocated to the Israeli side of the
cease-fire line. They openly acknowledge that they can't do anything about defending the zone
because Nusra/ISIS are not parties to the ceasefire, and Israel is covertly supplying them so
there's no proof that they are violating the cease-fire.
Israel has repeatedly bombed SAA troops chasing al Nusra/ISIS into the neutral zone. This is a
direct violation of the 1974 truce. Russia has always been pissed about that, but on Monday
they bitch-slapped Israel without anything but a ridiculous cover story spewed by the MSM (the
paraglider thing). Nobody seems to understand the profound implications of RUSSIA flying
combat missions IN THE UNDOF ZONE to bomb Israeli's little al Nusra buddies. They just did
this in al Qunaitra, which juts out into the occupied Golan Heights in such a way that it
would be difficult to bomb anything there without overflying the neurtral zone into the
Israeli side. Israel loves to use the word 'border' to suggest some kind of international
recognition, but there is none. There is (was) only a UNDOF-maintained cease-fire zone
arranged well into Syrian territory in 1974. Israel never left Syrian land and simply claim it
as theirs.
Russia keeps reiterating how it is adhering to international law. Something tells me that this
is in preparation for chasing any al Nusra/ISIS head-choppers into the Golan Heights as far as
they need to. They are not 'violating' Israeli airspace or soverign lands because it is - by
international recognition - still Syrian territory.
Everyone is waiting for a false flag, and it's been brewing right under our noses. Al Nusra
and ISIS will retreat into the Golan Heights because they think it will offer them immunity
from Russian air attacks. Russia recognizes (as does the world) that Syria STILL LEGALLY
extends to the Jordan river - the Golan Heights IS SYRIAN SOVERIGN TERRITORY. Russia is not
'provoking' Israel - Israel shouldn't be there according to international law and UN
recognition.
I think Russia is going to drive al Nusra and ISIS INTO the Golan Heights to force this issue
- an issue that Israel has already LOST in the eyes of the international community. Would the
U.S. go nuclear to 'defend' Israel's land-theft? Answer: Who cares. Dick Cheney's oil company
just found a huge deposit there - of course the U.S. would go nuclear to protect his money.
That's what the U.S. does.
cowdiddly
What's even funnier is Iraq has already said "NO THANKS" to ground troops in Iraq. They
have seen enough of your so called help.
Also the little hero raid the other day was a complete farce. The Pershmerga was supposed to
lead the raid and do all the dirty work while US troops come in behind. Of the casualties, The
one US soldier that got wacked got a little to rambunctious and got out in front.
Yea hero, lead from behind and you Kurds charge the hill and we look like we did the raid and
take the credit. WHATEVER.
The US is trying real hard to look relevent here. Just like the single ship to China crap.
OOOOHHHHHH SCARY, No one is Intimidated, it makes you look weak ,and they just think your
insane.
GO big or GO HOME. But mostly GO HOME WITH SOME DIGNITY LEFT. You can't afford to Play and you
look sad and no one wants your help.
We've found an oil stratum 350 meters thick in the southern Golan Heights. On average
worldwide, strata are 20 to 30 meters thick, and this is 10 times as large as that, so we are
talking about significant quantities," Afek Oil & Gas chief geologist Yuval Bartov claimed in
an interview to a local broadcaster as quoted by Engdahl.
"The Netanyahu government [is now] more determined than ever to sow chaos and disorder in
Damascus and use that to de facto create an Israeli irreversible occupation of Golan and its
oil," the expert stressed.
"Now an apparent discovery of huge volumes of oil by a New Jersey oil company whose board
includes Iraq war architect, Dick Cheney, neo-con ex-CIA head James Woolsey, and Jacob Lord
Rothschild… brings the stakes of the Russian intervention on behalf of Syria's Assad against
ISIS [ISIL], al-Qaeda and other CIA-backed 'moderate terrorists' to a new geopolitical
dimension," Engdahl underscored.
NOTE: Alphahammer and Yomatti wants everyone to spend a half
hour doing some research into the origins of ISIS:
http://bfy.tw/2VnO
Raymond_K._Hessel
Iraq to Washington: We Don't Want Your Troops
What a difference a day makes. Just 24 hours ago US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was
telling the Senate Armed Services Committee all about the Obama Administration's new military
strategy for the Middle East. The headline grabber from his testimony was the revelation that
the US military would begin "direct action on the ground" in Iraq and Syria.
"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL
(ISIS)," he told the Committee. The new strategy would consist of "three R's," he said: more
US action, including on the ground, with Syrian opposition partners to take the ISIS
stronghold in Raqqa, Syria; more intense cooperation with the Iraqi army including with
US-embedded soldiers to retake Ramadi from ISIS in Iraq; and the beginning of US military
raids, "whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground."
That was news to the Iraqis, it turns out. And it wasn't very good news at that. Today Sa'ad
al-Hadithi, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said "thanks but no thanks" to
a third US invasion of his country. "We have enough soldiers on the ground," he said.
This raises the question of whether the US administration intends to insert US soldiers into
Iraq against the wishes of its elected government, as it has done and promises to continue to
do in Syria. In that case, the US would be shooting at ISIS and the Iraqi government, as well
as the Iran-backed Shi'ite militias who are coming to increasingly control large parts of the
Iraqi military. Presumably all these forces would be shooting back at US troops on the ground
as well. The US would likely be partnering in this task with the anti-ISIS Sunni fighters
highlighted in Defense Secretary Carter's testimony yesterday. In other words, the US would be
backing forces closer to those of Saddam Hussein, who they overthrew twelve years ago.
The Iraqi government had requested Russian assistance against ISIS earlier this month, after
Russian strikes in Syria appear to have made a significant impact on the battlefield. But
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told the Iraqis if they
accept Russian assistance they can forget about any more US aid.
It appears the US threat was not enough to put the Iraqis off asking for Russian help, as
earlier this week the Iraqi parliament approved Russian airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq.
So the big roll-out of the new US Middle East military strategy seems to have fizzled, as none
of the intended beneficiaries of US assistance seem all that enthused about the partnership.
For the moment, the US finds itself backing Iranian militias in Iraq while fighting them next
door in Syria, while planning to place US troops in with "moderate" anti-Assad rebels in the
path of falling Russian bombs. All the while, of course, the US is aiding the Kurds in Syria
and Iraq which are currently being bombed by NATO ally Turkey.
Since ISIS, ISIL, IS or the word of the day is a Pentagon formed, trained & funded
operation, then the Pentagon is using the US Military, a Pentagon organization, against
another Pentagon organization.
Only proves the insanity of it all and the devaluing of life of the ordinary person.
Then again Satan attacks the ordinances of God given to man for the good of all which is
not limited to, marriage, family and the sanctity of life and unfortunately most people agree
as shown by their personal behaviors.
"... Whatever world order the U.S. may be fighting for in the Middle East, it seems at least an empire or two out of date. Washington refuses to admit to itself that [as a preverse reaction on neoliberalism] the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism resonate with vast numbers of people. ..."
"... No one is predicting a world war or a nuclear war from the mess in Syria. However, like those final days before the Great War, one finds a lot of pieces in play inside a tinderbox. ..."
"... Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in ..."
"... regular he writes about current events at ..."
A once stable region descends into chaos thanks to continuing repercussions from the 2003 Iraq
invasion. (via TomDispatch)
Whatever world order the U.S. may be fighting for in the Middle East, it seems at least an empire
or two out of date. Washington refuses to admit to itself that [as a preverse reaction on
neoliberalism] the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism
resonate with vast numbers of people. At this point, even as U.S. TOW missiles are becoming as ubiquitous
as iPads in the region, American military power can only delay changes, not stop them. Unless a rebalancing
of power that would likely favor some version of Islamic fundamentalism takes hold and creates some
measure of stability in the Middle East, count on one thing: the U.S. will be fighting the sons of
ISIS years from now.
... No one is predicting a world war or a nuclear war from the mess in Syria. However, like those
final days before the Great War, one finds a lot of pieces in play inside a tinderbox.
"... if you look at what is supporting equity prices - how much of that support is coming
from real economic activity versus from using stock buybacks, using cash on balance sheet
for stock buybacks, or mergers and acquisitions, to reduced competition in the marketplace.
These
are the sort of stories that if there were a small increase in interest rates, you would
temper some of that frothiness.
Eliminating the incentive to engage in that kind of activity seems
to me to be a good idea... There would be a proportion of the population that would have
less capital gains - but they've been enjoying very big capital gains, and it is a narrow
segment of the population."
"... There is a lot that is positive about China's transformation. However, it is quite telling that many of China's new rich cant get their money out of the country quickly enough. ..."
"... It isn't so much a case of whether the UK will become a province, I suspect the whole world will. China is close to the GDP of the USA and will overtake it in about 18 months, with GDP per head only about $8k. If Chinese GDP per head even doubles, it's economy will at least double, and that isn't taking into account population growth. China's economy has already grown by about 1000% since 2002. ..."
"... China is a very fascinating place with a very fascinating history... But this misguided sinophilia is exasperating. Half the time the Chinese government doesn't even know what it's doing. ..."
"... If you talk to Chinese people in private most of them take a pretty dim view of the invasion of Iraq and western interventionist foreign policy in general. Their government, however, don't put out grand press releases about it because that's not the way the Chinese do foreign diplomacy. ..."
"... Gunboat diplomacy, opium wars, putting down mutinies in India and elsewhere, black hole of Calcutta,thrashing the native language out of the Maori and Aborigines-forcing them to speak English, World War One and World War Two, suez, the Falklands. ..."
"... They will have to reject US inspired economic voodoo if they are to ever prosper again. There is little to no chance of a federal state. The cultural, language and political differences are insurmountable. ..."
"... Stopped reading at that point, author is obviously a neoliberal rent-a-mouth. If it's rights against interests there's nothing to balance, to suggest otherwise is agenda setting. ..."
"... The public opinion in France should remember about Frances' real place in the world, and mind its own business avoiding poking its long nose in other peoples' affaires. ..."
"... Bonapartism is an old French mental disorder. ..."
"... I didn't say the US completely controlled Europe, I just said that the US can bend Europe to its will in certain circumstances. For example it currently forces European banks to disclose customer information to the US Treasury and it is trying to get European countries to agree to allow US border control in European airports, so that the US can question UK citizens in London. ..."
"... i want to see a chinese century, at least the chinese wont invade other countries with the excuse of democracy or human rights ..."
"... LOL European democracy was born in Greece which is now under the full control of ECB and IMF The EU is a silly clown at the US court What are you talking about? ..."
"... To be fair to the Chinese, at least they're not evangelical about spreading their 'Authoritarianism with Chinese Characteristics' now are they? In fact, it's quite the opposite with their non-interference mantra. ..."
"... The rise of China is largely a good thing for Europe. The US will not hesitate to use its power to bend Europe to its will where necessary (and who can blame it, all countries do this when they can) and the cultural and political diversity of Europe means the EU is unlikely to rival the US or China anytime soon. But the rise of China allows Europe to play one great power off against the other to resist bullying and extract concessions from one or both. ..."
"... You can have democracy with a long memory see periods before 1970's (neoliberalisation requires a small memory). ..."
"... If Europe continues to have a long term strategy the 'long-term' has not started yet. It is currently in the process of internal devaluation and the morons in charge happily attack labor conditions which weakens spending which further degrades potential GDP increases hidden unemployment and stagnation. Germany did this first and now continues to leverage the small head start it got during the 90's for doing so. ..."
"... It has nothing to do with that reasoning. It was always predicted the West will self destruct. Inventing Globalisation and then closed down places of work for its citizen and export them la, la lands benefiting very few people, the beneficiaries who end up sending their monies to tax havens un-taxed and sponsoring some selected people to power to do their biding was always self defeating. ..."
"... We gave China our jobs and cheap technologies that have taken us centuries to develop in of getting cheap goods. As a result China did not have to pass through the phases we passed through in our early industrial age when Machines were more expensive than humans before the reverse. ..."
"... Who speaks for Europe? No-one is the answer. It is the single largest economy on the plant. Biggest exporter on the planet. Arguably the richest middle class on the planet; combined, possibly the biggest defense budget on the planet, and all this with a central government driving foreign policy, defense, economic strategy, monetary policy, nor any of the other institutions of a Federal State. China knows this, the Americans know this; and Europe keeps getting treated as the "child" on the international scene. It's too bad, because Europe, as a whole, has many wonderful positives to contribute to the world. ..."
The problem is how do you define civilization? The urban centres were in the Middle East, and
long pre-date China. 6,000 years ago, the world's largest towns and cities were in the Balkans
- the Tripolye-Cucuteni culture. Because of the conventions of nomenclature, they don't count
as a civilization. This raises the question, when does a culture become a civilization? There
are certainly well attested archaeological cultures in China going back a long way, but there
are equally ancient cultures in Europe. Should we then say that Europe has 4,000 or 5,000 or more
years of civilization?
Good records for Chinese history go back about 3,000 years. Anything before that becomes archaeological
rather than historical, based on artifacts rather than records. References to different dynasties
don't help - there are no records comparable to Near Eastern king lists, or the Sumerian or Hittite
royal archives. China set up the Three Kingdoms Project to try to find the 'missing' 2,000 years
of Chinese history - i.e. the history that they claim to have, but have no direct evidence. They
didn't find it.
Adetheshades 23 Oct 2015 22:52
There is a lot that is positive about China's transformation. However, it is quite telling
that many of China's new rich cant get their money out of the country quickly enough.
They
obviously know more than the average Guardian reader, and apparently don't feel their cash
is safe. This causes problems of its own, when they start splashing this cash in the UK property
market, causing further price escalation if any were needed.
There isn't much we can do about the size and wealth of China.
It isn't so much a case of whether the UK will become a province, I suspect the whole world will.
China is close to the GDP of the USA and will overtake it in about 18 months, with GDP per head
only about $8k. If Chinese GDP per head even doubles, it's economy will at least double, and that
isn't taking into account population growth. China's economy has already grown by about 1000%
since 2002.
At what point will we drop French from the school curriculum in favour of Mandarin is the question.
To say Beijings influence is growing is a lovely little piece of understatement.
Adamnuisance 23 Oct 2015 21:22
China is a very fascinating place with a very fascinating history... But this misguided sinophilia
is exasperating. Half the time the Chinese government doesn't even know what it's doing.
Being
passive aggressive and claiming to be 'unique' are their real specialties. I have little doubt
that China will become even more powerful with time... I just hope their backwards politics improves
with their economy.
Thruns 23 Oct 2015 20:44
The first long game was Mao's coup.
The second long game was the great leap forward.
The third long game was the cultural revolution.
The fourth long game was to adopt the west's capitalism and sell the west its own technology.
At last the "communist" Chinese seem to have found a winner.
tufsoft Maharaja -> Brovinda Singh 23 Oct 2015 20:30
If you talk to Chinese people in private most of them take a pretty dim view of the invasion
of Iraq and western interventionist foreign policy in general. Their government, however, don't
put out grand press releases about it because that's not the way the Chinese do foreign diplomacy.
nothell -> Laurence Johnson 23 Oct 2015 20:16
Your comment about the British Empire must be tongue in cheek.
Gunboat diplomacy, opium wars, putting down mutinies in India and elsewhere, black hole of
Calcutta,thrashing the native language out of the Maori and Aborigines-forcing them to speak English,
World War One and World War Two, suez, the Falklands.
Anything but peaceful and anything but fair. Europe had the past, let Asia have the future.
slightlynumb -> theoldmanfromusa 23 Oct 2015 20:10
They will have to reject US inspired economic voodoo if they are to ever prosper again. There
is little to no chance of a federal state. The cultural, language and political differences are
insurmountable.
Rasengruen 23 Oct 2015 20:05
All of this presents well-known dilemmas for Europeans, such as how to balance human rights
and economic interests.
Stopped reading at that point, author is obviously a neoliberal rent-a-mouth. If it's rights
against interests there's nothing to balance, to suggest otherwise is agenda setting.
philby87 23 Oct 2015 18:50
public opinion in France, which had been shocked by an outbreak of violent repression
in Tibet
The public opinion in France should remember about Frances' real place in the world, and
mind its own business avoiding poking its long nose in other peoples' affaires. A good example
is Japan which is twice larger than France, but never lectures its neighbors about what they should
and shouldn't do. Bonapartism is an old French mental disorder.
skepticaleye -> midaregami 23 Oct 2015 18:04
The Yue state was populated mostly by the members of the Yue people who were not Han. The South
China wasn't completely sinicized well into the second millennium CE. Yunnan wasn't incorporated
into China until the Mongols conquered Dali in the 13th century, and the Ming dynasty eradicated
the Mongols' resistance there in the 14th century.
PeterBederell -> Daniel S 23 Oct 2015 17:54
I didn't say the US completely controlled Europe, I just said that the US can bend Europe to
its will in certain circumstances. For example it currently forces European banks to disclose
customer information to the US Treasury and it is trying to get European countries to agree to
allow US border control in European airports, so that the US can question UK citizens in London.
Europe often has to agree to these indignities because it needs access to the US market and to
keep the US sweet. But with a strong China, it can use the threat of following China in some way
the US doesn't like as a bargaining chip, like joining China's Development Bank, which put the
US in a huff recently.
Chriswr -> AdamStrange 23 Oct 2015 17:54
What we in the West call human rights are creations of the Enlightenment and only about 300 years old. As a modern Westerner I am, of course, a big supporter of them. But let's not pretend they are part of some age-old tradition.
sor2007 -> impartial12 23 Oct 2015 17:48
i want to see a chinese century, at least the chinese wont invade other countries with the excuse of democracy or human rights
ApfelD 23 Oct 2015 17:42
China can rightly point out that it was already a civilisation 4,000 years ago – well ahead of Europe – and it uses that historical depth to indicate it will never take lessons on democracy.
LOL
European democracy was born in Greece which is now under the full control of ECB and IMF
The EU is a silly clown at the US court
What are you talking about?
HoolyK BabylonianSheDevil03 23 Oct 2015 17:34
To be fair to the Chinese, at least they're not evangelical about spreading their
'Authoritarianism with Chinese Characteristics' now are they? In fact, it's quite the opposite
with their non-interference mantra. When the Chinese see the following:
1. the West preaches democracy and human rights
2. is evangelical about it and spreads it by hook or crook into the Middle East
3. this causes regimes to be changed and instability to spread
4. the chaos causes a massive refugee crisis, washing these poor huddled masses onto the
shores of Europe
5. the human rights preached by the West demands that the the refugees receive help
6. the native population is slowly being displaced
7. native population is further screwed, with austerity, financial crisis and now said Syrian
refugees
8. Fascist and Nazis parties are elected into office, civil strife ensues
Now, what do you think the Chinese, who ABHOR chaos, think about democracy and human rights
??
PeterBederell 23 Oct 2015 16:47
The rise of China is largely a good thing for Europe. The US will not hesitate to use
its power to bend Europe to its will where necessary (and who can blame it, all countries do
this when they can) and the cultural and political diversity of Europe means the EU is
unlikely to rival the US or China anytime soon. But the rise of China allows Europe to play
one great power off against the other to resist bullying and extract concessions from one or
both.
HoolyK -> AdamStrange 23 Oct 2015 16:30
Anatolia is inhabited by Turks from Central Asia who settled in the 11th century,
Iraq/Syria was overrun by Muslims in the 7th century. China is still Han Chinese, as it was
5000 years ago.
'human rights' really? then do you support the human rights of tens of thousands of refugees
from Syria to settle in Britain and Europe then? I ask this awkward question only because I
know the Chinese will ask ....
dev_null 23 Oct 2015 16:23
China deploys a long-term strategy in part because it has a very long memory, and in
part because its ruling elite needn't bother too much about electoral constraints.
The two are not mutially exclusive. You can have democracy with a long memory see
periods before 1970's (neoliberalisation requires a small memory).
China's longest 'strategy' was to leverage its currency artificially lower than it should be
in order to net export so many manufactured goods. Nothing else.
If Europe continues to have a long term strategy the 'long-term' has not started yet. It
is currently in the process of internal devaluation and the morons in charge happily attack
labor conditions which weakens spending which further degrades potential GDP increases hidden
unemployment and stagnation. Germany did this first and now continues to leverage the small
head start it got during the 90's for doing so.
Eurozone = Dystopia
China can rightly point out that it was already a civilisation 4,000 years ago – well
ahead of Europe
No sorry europe contained many advanced cultures going back just as far. This is
incompetent journalism. China was not 'china' it was many kingdoms and cultures 4000 years
ago, as was Europe at the time. Fallacy of decomposition.
MeandYou -> weka69 23 Oct 2015 16:11
It has nothing to do with that reasoning. It was always predicted the West will self
destruct. Inventing Globalisation and then closed down places of work for its citizen and
export them la, la lands benefiting very few people, the beneficiaries who end up sending
their monies to tax havens un-taxed and sponsoring some selected people to power to do their
biding was always self defeating.
We gave China our jobs and cheap technologies that have taken us centuries to develop
in of getting cheap goods. As a result China did not have to pass through the phases we passed
through in our early industrial age when Machines were more expensive than humans before the
reverse. We gave China all in a plate hence the speed neck speed China has risen. The
Consumerism society the political class created they were stupid enough to forget people still
need money to buy cheap goods. Consumerism does not run on empty purse.
wintpu 23 Oct 2015 15:57
You are preaching a China Containment strategy:
[1] This is racist viciousness, colonial mentality, or white supremacist conspiracy, believing
that containment is your moral right. You seem to be wallowing still in the stiff upper lipped
notions that you are the betters versus the east. Colonialism is over and still you cling to
the notion that the EU should get together and try to destroy China's social system because it
is different from yours. Your records on human rights, governance and effectiveness are all
droopy examples to be object lessons rather than role models for emulation by developing
countries. Your opium war denials [simply by not mentioning it] give you very little high
ground to hector China and the Chinese people.
[2] Recent Behavior. Putting aside your opium war robbery, your behavior in the run up to 1997
Hong Kong hand back shows your greedy sneakiness. Chris Patten infamously tried to throw a
monkey wrench into an agreed-upon process by trying to steal the Hong Kong treasury, then
planting the seeds of British wannabees. You passed a special law to deny the 1.36 million
Hong Kong residents who had become British Citizens was one of the most shameful racist acts
of your colonial record. Cameron is now bending over backwards post haste in order to
side-step the long long memory of the Chinese people.
[3] Crying about getting other EU nations to do aiding and abetting of your vendetta against a
rising China? Trying to reduce and contain China does you no good. So it is a simple case of
mendacity. But you forget that the Germans have already gone to China honestly and co-operated
since the time of Helmut Kohl and the CPC has not forgotten their loyal friends. Today most
CPC leaders drive Audis. There is no turning Germany away from their key position in
Chinatrade to become enemies of China because of your self-serving wishes. Even now, France
has jumped in on the nuclear niche to present you with a package you cannot refuse.
samohio 23 Oct 2015 15:51
Who speaks for Europe? No-one is the answer. It is the single largest economy on the
plant. Biggest exporter on the planet. Arguably the richest middle class on the planet;
combined, possibly the biggest defense budget on the planet, and all this with a central
government driving foreign policy, defense, economic strategy, monetary policy, nor any of the
other institutions of a Federal State. China knows this, the Americans know this; and Europe
keeps getting treated as the "child" on the international scene. It's too bad, because Europe,
as a whole, has many wonderful positives to contribute to the world.
"... The purpose was to create the perception that, according to speaker, "Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military intervention in Syria." ..."
"... Turkish government ..."
"... 'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.' ..."
"... And as recently as yesterday a State Department flac was stil asserting that Assad was responsible for the Sarin attack. Those boys and girls no longer remember how to tell the truth, even to save their own skins. ..."
"... The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria: ..."
"... –Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades. ..."
"... –Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video "Syria: Wolves of the Valley": "Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary." ..."
"... –Turkey's intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria. ..."
"... – Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here . In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities. ..."
"... – Turkey's foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria . A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding. ..."
"... –Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue. ..."
"... – Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar . ..."
"... "We were some of the first people on the ground –if not the first people – to get that story of…militants going in through the Turkish border…I've got images of them in World Food Organization trucks. It was very apparent that they were militants by their beards, by the clothes they wore, and they were going in there with NGO trucks," ..."
Two members of the Turkish parliament gave a press conference this week saying that they have
wiretapped recordings and other evidence showing that Turkey supplied the sarin used in Syria.
As
reported by Turkey's largest newspapers, Today's Zaman:
CHP deputies Eren Erdem
and Ali ?eker held a
press conference in Istanbul on Wednesday in which they claimed the investigation into allegations
regarding Turkey's involvement in the procurement of sarin gas which was used in the
chemical attack
on a civil population and delivered to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
to enable the attack was derailed.
Taking the floor first, Erdem stated that the Adana Chief Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation
into allegations that sarin was sent to Syria from Turkey via several businessmen.
An indictment followed regarding the accusations targeting the government.
"The MKE [Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation] is also an actor that is mentioned
in the investigation file. Here is the indictment. All the details about how sarin was
procured in Turkey and delivered to the terrorists, along with audio recordings, are inside the
file," Erdem said while waving the file.
Erdem also noted that the prosecutor's office conducted detailed technical surveillance and
found that an al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin, adding: "Wiretapped phone
conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process
of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However,
despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested
during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims
that it is fighting terrorism," Erdem noted.
Over 1,300 people were killed in the sarin gas attack in Ghouta and several other neighborhoods
near the Syrian capital of Damascus, with the West quickly blaming the regime of Bashar al-Assad
and Russia claiming it was a "false flag" operation aimed at making US military intervention in
Syria possible.
Suburbs near Damascus were struck by rockets containing the toxic sarin gas in August 2013.
The purpose of the attack was allegedly to provoke a US military operation in Syria
which would topple the Assad regime in line with the political agenda of then-Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.
CHP deputy speaker spoke after Erdem, pointing out that the government misled the public on the
issue by asserting that sarin was provided by Russia. The purpose was to create the
perception that, according to speaker, "Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military
intervention in Syria."
He also underlined that all of the files and evidence from the investigation show a war crime
was committed within the borders of the Turkish Republic.
"The investigation clearly indicates that those people who smuggled the chemicals required
to procure sarin faced no difficulties, proving that Turkish intelligence was aware of their activities.
Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh – who uncovered the Iraq prison torture
scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam – previously
reported that high-level American sources tell him that the
Turkish government carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government.
'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official,
who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in
a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red
line threat.'
Indeed, it's long been known that sarin was
coming through Turkey. And a tape recording of top Turkish officials planning a false flag attack to be blamed on Syria
as a causus belli was
leaked … and confirmed by Turkey as being authentic. Turkey is a member of NATO. There are previous instances where Turkish government
officials have admitted to carrying out false flag attacks.
For example:
The Turkish Prime Minister
admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in
Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on
Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.
"they don't want a population capable of critical thinking" george carlin
Macon Richardson
And as recently as yesterday a State Department flac was stil asserting that Assad was
responsible for the Sarin attack. Those boys and girls no longer remember how to tell the truth,
even to save their own skins.
The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:
–Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of
the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
–Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video
"Syria: Wolves of the Valley": "Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in
to the fighting when necessary."
–Turkey's intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities
of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they
made at least
2,000 trips to Syria.
–Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August
2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh
here. In May 2013,
Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish
authorities.
–Turkey's foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly
recorded
plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational
recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it
from proceeding.
–Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked
Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances
for injured fighters. Turkey
shot down
a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers
inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely
untrue.
–Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Rest assured Russia is fully aware of all the clandestine goings-on.
Interesting that Turkey is keen on snuggling up close with those bastions of civil rights -
SA and Qatar, just at the same time as they are making very loud noises re the involvement of
what is Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict . . . .
Easy to see which side Turkey's desperately backing.
conscious being
Serena Shim, Shim had been reporting that IS militants had crossed the border from Turkey into
Syria in trucks apparently affiliated with NGOs, some of which allegedly bore World Food Organization
symbols. She claimed that she had received images from Islamic militants crossing the Turkish
border and was one of the few reporters focusing on the matter.
"We were some of the first people on the ground –if not the first people – to get that story of…militants
going in through the Turkish border…I've got images of them in World Food Organization trucks.
It was very apparent that they were militants by their beards, by the clothes they wore, and they
were going in there with NGO trucks," she said.
lakecity55
I also remember the Terrorists taking over a pool supply/industrial supply house of Chlorine
gas. They may have manufactured the chlorine at the same facility, so there was no shortage of
ways for them to get ahold of poison gas.
The ideation that Assad would gas his own people is absurd. He throws some dissidents inot jail,
but so does the USSA.
that's pretty superficial coverage. Capabilities of smartphone mike are pretty limited and by
design it is try to suppress external noise. If your phone is in the case microphone will not pick up much. Same for camera. Only your
GPS location is available. If phone is switched off then even this is not reality available.
I think the whole ability to listen from the pocket is overblown. There is too much noice to make
this practical on the current level of development of technology. At the same time I think
just metadata are enough to feel that you are the constant surveillance.
Notable quotes:
"... the most part intelligence agencies are not really looking to monitor your private phone communications per se. They are actually taking over full control of the phone to take photos or record ongoing conversations within earshot. ..."
"... According to Snowden, the UK's spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, uses NSA technology to develop software tools to control almost anyone's smartphone. He notes that all it takes is sending an encrypted text message to get into virtually any smartphone. Moreover, the message will not be seen by the user, making it almost impossible to stop the attack. ..."
"... Reprinted with permission from WeMeantWell.com . ..."
You are a tool of the state, according to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA in the U.S.,
and its equivalent in the UK, GCHQ, are taking control of your phone not just to spy on you as needed,
but also to use your device as a way to spy on others around you. You are a walking microphone, camera
and GPS for spies.
Snowden, in a BBC interview,
explained that for the most part intelligence agencies are not really looking to monitor your
private phone communications per se. They are actually taking over full control of the phone to take
photos or record ongoing conversations within earshot.
According to Snowden, the UK's spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, uses
NSA technology to develop software tools to control almost anyone's smartphone. He notes that all
it takes is sending an encrypted text message to get into virtually any smartphone. Moreover, the
message will not be seen by the user, making it almost impossible to stop the attack.
GCHQ calls these smartphone hacking tools the "Smurf
Suite." The suite includes:
"Dreamy Smurf" is the power management tool that turns your phone on and off with you knowing.
"Nosey Smurf" is the hot mic tool. "For example," Snowden said, "if the phone is in your
pocket, NSA/GCHQ can turn the microphone on and listen to everything that's going on around you,
even if your phone is switched off because they've got the other tools for turning it on.
"Tracker Smurf" is a geolocation tool which allows spies to follow you with a greater precision
than you would get from the typical triangulation of cellphone towers.
"Paranoid Smurf" is a defensive mechanism designed to make the other tools installed on
the phone undetectable.
Snowden said the NSA has spent close to $1 billion to develop these smartphone hacking programs.
"... Talbot focusses extensively on James Jesus Angleton, the shadowy counterintelligence figure at the heart of the domestic assassinations of the 1960s, and examines the inner-workings of Dulles' ambitious (and dastardly) plot to consolidate and control global political power. "The Devil's Chessboard" is a startling and revelatory masterwork. In terms of easy-to-access assassination research, this book is second only to James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable." In terms of biographies of Dulles and Angleton, two of history's most infamous figures, this work is second to none. ..."
"... A heretofore unanswered question about the JFK assassination is what was Allen Dulles was doing between the time he was fired by JFK as Director of the CIA in 1961 until the moment of the assassination on November 22, 1963. A related question is how was it conceivable for Dulles to have been appointed to the Warren Commission that eventually produced the conclusions that are still accepted by mainstream historians and the media? Talbot's intensive research helps to shed on light on those questions by tracing the arc of development of the career of Allen Dulles as a high-powered attorney at the center of the elitist East Coast establishment, his shocking collaboration with the Nazis while working in the OSS, and his career in clandestine activities at the CIA ..."
"... Talbots research probes not merely the activities of Dulles as Director of the CIA, but explores the broader context of his function over three decades as a power broker, whose efforts were directed not against hostile governments but against his own. ..."
"... the more recent book on Dulles covers the broader scope of how the American government was transformed into the national security state in the years following World War II. Talbots goal in preparing this book is to demonstrate the urgency of coming to terms with our past and how it is essential that we continue to fight for the right to own our history. (p. xii) An excellent place to begin that quest is to own this book. ..."
A Groundbreaking Resource, Second Only to "JFK and the Unspeakable"
A tremendous resource of breathtaking depth and clarity. Talbot builds on the now decades-old
body of research - initiated by investigative reporters Tom Mangold ("Cold Warrior") and David
Wise ("Molehunt"), and largely developed by assassination researchers James DiEugenio and Lisa
Pease ("The Assassinations") - and adds groundbreaking new information.
Talbot focusses extensively on James Jesus Angleton, the shadowy counterintelligence figure
at the heart of the domestic assassinations of the 1960s, and examines the inner-workings of Dulles'
ambitious (and dastardly) plot to consolidate and control global political power. "The Devil's
Chessboard" is a startling and revelatory masterwork. In terms of easy-to-access assassination
research, this book is second only to James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable." In terms of biographies
of Dulles and Angleton, two of history's most infamous figures, this work is second to none.
Note: Be wary of one-star reviews for this book. Some trace back to commissioned-review services,
the same services that give five-star reviews to shady/suspicious health and beauty products.
Go figure.
To read this magnificent book by David Talbot is to understand how the JFK assassination occurred
and how the truth was concealed by officialdom in the Warren Report. Unlike his brother, John
Foster Dulles, the younger Allen Welsh Dulles rarely makes it into American history textbooks.
In this extremely detailed study, the singular importance of Allen Dulles is demonstrated as being
central to a watershed period in the American Century.
First and foremost, "The Devil's Chessboard" is a beautifully written and meticulously researched
volume. Talbot drew upon archives at Princeton University, where the Allen Dulles papers are housed.
He also conducted research in other archives across the country. The documentary work is buttressed
and amplified by interviews with the surviving daughter of Dulles, as well as interviews with
the children of Dulles' colleagues and over 150 officials from the Kennedy administration. Nearly
forty pages of notes serve to document the author's sources.
One of the most revealing moments about Allen Dulles was when he was ten years old and spending
time at the family's lake home in upstate New York. After his five-year-old sister fell into the
lake and was drifting away from him, Allen stood stock still, "strangely impassive. The boy just
stood on the dock and watched as his little sister drifted away." (p. 19) Fortunately, the child
was rescued by the mother. The behavior of young Allen is representative of a lifelong predilection
for observing the imponderables of life as an insider while looking to others to "risk their skins."
For this little boy, the world was already forming into a chessboard with pawns to manipulate
for his self-serving needs. Talbot describes Dulles' rogue actions in allowing Nazi war criminals
to avoid prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials in these chilling words: "Even in the life-and-death
throes of wartime espionage, Dulles seemed untouched by the intense human drama swirling around
him." (p. 120)
In one of the most riveting moments of the book, Talbot describes an interchange between Dulles
and researcher David Lifton at a colloquium on the JFK assassination at the campus of UCLA in
1965. Lifton came prepared to challenge Dulles on major deficiencies of the Warren Report. By
the end of the evening, the students attending the session were more interested in Lifton's findings
than Dulles' unsuccessful attempts to deflect the tough questions. In retrospect, Lifton apparently
claimed that he "was in the presence of 'evil' that night." (p. 591)
A heretofore unanswered question about the JFK assassination is what was Allen Dulles was
doing between the time he was fired by JFK as Director of the CIA in 1961 until the moment of
the assassination on November 22, 1963. A related question is how was it conceivable for Dulles
to have been appointed to the Warren Commission that eventually produced the conclusions that
are still accepted by mainstream historians and the media? Talbot's intensive research helps to
shed on light on those questions by tracing the arc of development of the career of Allen Dulles
as a high-powered attorney at the center of the elitist East Coast establishment, his shocking
collaboration with the Nazis while working in the OSS, and his career in clandestine activities
at the CIA
Talbot's research probes not merely the activities of Dulles as Director of the CIA, but explores
the broader context of his function over three decades as a power broker, whose "efforts were
directed not against hostile governments but against his own." (p. 3) Talbot cites revelations
from the Columbia University sociology professor C. Wright Mills about the secret government of
Allen Dulles, which was comprised of a "power elite" and based on the anti-Constitutional premise
of "organized irresponsibility."
In many ways, "The Devil's Chessboard" is a companion volume to Talbot's essential study "Brothers,"
which focuses on the relationship of John and Robert Kennedy, the assassination of JFK, and the
aftereffects on RFK. But the more recent book on Dulles covers the broader scope of how the American
government was transformed into the national security state in the years following World War II.
Talbot's goal in preparing this book is to demonstrate the urgency of coming to terms with our
past and how "it is essential that we continue to fight for the right to own our history." (p.
xii) An excellent place to begin that quest is to own this book.
"... "Why play with words dividing terrorists into moderate and not moderate. Whats the difference?," Putin asked, adding that "success in fighting terrorists cannot be reached if using some of them as a battering ram to overthrow disliked regimes [because] its just an illusion that they can be dealt with [later], removed from power and somehow negotiated with." ..."
"... hypothetical nuclear threat from Iran is a myth. The US was just trying to destroy the strategical balance, [and] not to just dominate, but be able to dictate its will to everyone – not only geopolitical opponents, but also allies. ..."
"... We had the right to expect that work on development of US missile defense system would stop. But nothing like it happened, and it continues. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful for all, including the United States itself. The deterrent of nuclear weapons has started to lose its value, and some have even got the illusion that a real victory of one of the sides can be achieved in a global conflict, without irreversible consequences for the winner itself – if there is a winner at all." ..."
"... the US believes it not only has the capacity to win a war against the nations Washington habitually places on its various lists of bad guys (i.e. Russia, Iran, and China), but that Washington believes America can win without incurring consequences that are commensurate with the damage the US inflicts on its enemies. That, Putin believes, is a dangerous miscalculation and one that could end up endangering US citizens. ..."
"... They did this after the White House ... ... decided to move patriot batteries to E. Europe then blew him off and claimed they were pointed at Iran. Remember the Interview where Putin bust out laughing at the reporter who suggested this? ..."
... Washington, Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha are left to look on helplessly as their Sunni
extremist proxy armies are devastated by the Russian air force. The Kremlin knows there's little
chance that the West and its allies will step in to directly support the rebels - the optics around
that would quickly turn into a PR nightmare.
... ... ...
Speaking today at the International Valdai Discussion Club's 12th annual meeting in Sochi, Putin
delivered a sweeping critique of military strategy and foreign policy touching on everything from
the erroneous labeling of some extremists as "moderates" to the futility of nuclear war.
"Why play with words dividing terrorists into moderate and not moderate. What's the difference?,"
Putin asked, adding that "success in fighting terrorists cannot be reached if using some of them
as a battering ram to overthrow disliked regimes [because] it's just an illusion that they can
be dealt with [later], removed from power and somehow negotiated with."
"I'd like to stress once again that [Russia's operation in Syria] is completely legitimate,
and its only aim is to aid in establishing peace," Putin said of Moscow's Mid-East strategy. And
while he's probably telling the truth there, it's only by default. That is, peace in Syria likely
means the restoration of Assad (it's difficult to imagine how else the country can be stabilized
in the short-term), and because that aligns with Russia's interests, The Kremlin is seeking to
promote peace - it's more a tautology than it is a comment on Putin's desire for goodwill towards
men.
And then there's Iran and its nascent nuclear program. Putin accused the US of illegitimately
seeking to play nuclear police officer, a point on which he is unquestionably correct:
The "hypothetical nuclear threat from Iran is a myth. The US was just trying to destroy the strategical
balance, [and] not to just dominate, but be able to dictate its will to everyone – not only geopolitical
opponents, but also allies."
Speaking of nukes, Putin also warned that some nuclear powers seem to believe that there's a way
to take the "mutually" out of "mutually assured destruction."
That is, Putin warned against the dangers of thinking it's possible to "win" a nuclear war. Commenting
on US anti-missile shields in Europe and on the idea of MAD, Putin said the following:
"We had the right to expect that work on development of US missile defense system would
stop. But nothing like it happened, and it continues. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful
for all, including the United States itself. The deterrent of nuclear weapons has
started to lose its value, and some have even got the illusion that a real victory of one of the
sides can be achieved in a global conflict, without irreversible consequences for the winner itself
– if there is a winner at all."
In short, Putin is suggesting that the world may have gone crazy. The implication is that
the US believes it not only has the capacity to win a war against the nations Washington habitually
places on its various lists of "bad guys" (i.e. Russia, Iran, and China), but that Washington believes
America can win without incurring consequences that are commensurate with the damage the US inflicts
on its enemies. That, Putin believes, is a dangerous miscalculation and one that could end up endangering
US citizens.
... ... ...
ZerOhead
Putin is really pushing the "nuclear war" angle hard. I guess his good friend Henry Kissinger
must have told him that power is the only thing that NeoCon fucknuts like himself understand...
El Vaquero
For any who want to read it, here is some detailed information on what the USSR's nuclear strategy
was during the Cold War:
While some things will have changed due to changes in technology, what kinds of targets the
Russians would pick is likely much the same as it was when it was part of the USSR. If you live
near a target, this might be helpful:
The people of the Falklands voted to remain associated with the UK. The citizens of Quebec,
Canada nearly voted themselves out of Canada, the citizens of Scotland nearly voted themselves
out of the the UK, Self Determination is respected by the UN as being a fundamental right of all
peoples, so of course when the the citizens of Crimea undertake exactly the same process and vote
to join Russia it is a Russian imperialist land grab.
Watch more MSM. They will explain it all to you.
Occident Mortal
Russian ICBM's can't be shot down with air defense missiles.
Russian ICBM's constantly recalculate their trajectory following a continually regenerated
'random path' through 3D space all the way to their target. The downside is that the missles need
20% more fuel.
All air defense systems work by tracking a missle and projecting it's trajectory then triangulating
an intercept location and launching an interceptor to that location.
But by the time the interceptor reaches the intercept location the Russian ICBM will have changed
course several times and is likely to be thousands of meters away.
In order to intercept a Russian ICBM the interceptor needs to travel at over 35,000mph. Good
luck with that.
George Bush decided he wanted a Star Wars missle defense system and after spending a boat load
of cash.. the Kremlin called in the US amabasador and told them all Russian missle had just received
a software upgrade that would render Star Wars obsolete before it was even built. The Star Wars
program was scrapped within a month.
Anasteus
A shockingly open Putin's summary of the current situation that every American should hear
They'd be practically useless on this continent because of the decoys accompanying the 'physics
packages.' The sine qua non of an effective ABM system is the ability to destroy the missiles
during the boost phase. The importance of eastern Ukraine is its proximity to Russian ICBM bases,
which is why 'our' government spent $5 billion to foment the coup.
cowdiddly
Oh dont worry it is Carl. That little Caspian missile shoot off the shrimp boats has caused
these morons to realize there may be a few gaping ass holes in the curtain has them scrambling.
I present you their panic contract to "protect the homeland" just issued to..........Yep. Lockheed
Martin. purveyors of the fine F35 aircraft.
Speaking of military contracts, Last year Russia upgraded and refurbished over 5000 underground
atomic bomb shelters built in the old Soviet days that are located in every province of Russia
for their people. He knows what kind of nimcompoops he is dealing with. They did this after
the White House ... ... decided to move patriot batteries to E. Europe then blew him off and claimed
they were pointed at Iran. Remember the Interview where Putin bust out laughing at the reporter
who suggested this?
Now ask yourself how many underground shelters has your government provided for us, other than
the huge complex in Utah for the President and politicians to move safely too? I certainly don't
know where one is in my state unless I was to dig it myself. The only thing I know of that they
did to prepare for disaster is Fema built millions of plastic coffin like things that are being
stored around everywhere.
They are only worried about protecting themselves and don't give a rats ass about you other than
taxes. Their only concern for you is you might lay around to long stinking up the place.
"... Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies. ..."
"... International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time, total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as black and black as white. ..."
"... In a situation where you had domination by one country and its allies, or its satellites rather, the search for global solutions often turned into an attempt to impose their own universal recipes. This group's ambitions grew so big that they started presenting the policies they put together in their corridors of power as the view of the entire international community. But this is not the case. ..."
"... The measures taken against those who refuse to submit are well-known and have been tried and tested many times. They include use of force, economic and propaganda pressure, meddling in domestic affairs, and appeals to a kind of 'supra-legal' legitimacy when they need to justify illegal intervention in this or that conflict or toppling inconvenient regimes. Of late, we have increasing evidence too that outright blackmail has been used with regard to a number of leaders. It is not for nothing that 'big brother' is spending billions of dollars on keeping the whole world, including its own closest allies, under surveillance. ..."
"... They once sponsored Islamic extremist movements to fight the Soviet Union. Those groups got their battle experience in Afghanistan and later gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The West if not supported, at least closed its eyes, and, I would say, gave information, political and financial support to international terrorists' invasion of Russia (we have not forgotten this) and the Central Asian region's countries. Only after horrific terrorist attacks were committed on US soil itself did the United States wake up to the common threat of terrorism. Let me remind you that we were the first country to support the American people back then, the first to react as friends and partners to the terrible tragedy of September 11. ..."
"... As for financing sources, today, the money is coming not just from drugs, production of which has increased not just by a few percentage points but many-fold, since the international coalition forces have been present in Afghanistan. You are aware of this. The terrorists are getting money from selling oil too. Oil is produced in territory controlled by the terrorists, who sell it at dumping prices, produce it and transport it. But someone buys this oil, resells it, and makes a profit from it, not thinking about the fact that they are thus financing terrorists who could come sooner or later to their own soil and sow destruction in their own countries. ..."
"... What was the result? Tens of thousands of soldiers, officers and former Baath Party activists were turned out into the streets and today have joined the rebels' ranks. Perhaps this is what explains why the Islamic State group has turned out so effective? In military terms, it is acting very effectively and has some very professional people. Russia warned repeatedly about the dangers of unilateral military actions, intervening in sovereign states' affairs, and flirting with extremists and radicals. We insisted on having the groups fighting the central Syrian government, above all the Islamic State, included on the lists of terrorist organisations. But did we see any results? We appealed in vain. ..."
"... Essentially, the unipolar world is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and countries. The unipolar world turned out too uncomfortable, heavy and unmanageable a burden even for the self-proclaimed leader. Comments along this line were made here just before and I fully agree with this. This is why we see attempts at this new historic stage to recreate a semblance of a quasi-bipolar world as a convenient model for perpetuating American leadership. It does not matter who takes the place of the centre of evil in American propaganda, the USSR's old place as the main adversary. It could be Iran, as a country seeking to acquire nuclear technology, China, as the world's biggest economy, or Russia, as a nuclear superpower. ..."
"... Sanctions are already undermining the foundations of world trade, the WTO rules and the principle of inviolability of private property. They are dealing a blow to liberal model of globalisation based on markets, freedom and competition, which, let me note, is a model that has primarily benefited precisely the Western countries. And now they risk losing trust as the leaders of globalisation. We have to ask ourselves, why was this necessary? After all, the United States' prosperity rests in large part on the trust of investors and foreign holders of dollars and US securities. This trust is clearly being undermined and signs of disappointment in the fruits of globalisation are visible now in many countries. ..."
"... Of course the sanctions are a hindrance. They are trying to hurt us through these sanctions, block our development and push us into political, economic and cultural isolation, force us into backwardness in other words. But let me say yet again that the world is a very different place today. We have no intention of shutting ourselves off from anyone and choosing some kind of closed development road, trying to live in autarky. We are always open to dialogue, including on normalising our economic and political relations. We are counting here on the pragmatic approach and position of business communities in the leading countries. ..."
"... Ukraine, which I'm sure was discussed at length and which we will discuss some more, is one of the example of such sorts of conflicts that affect international power balance, and I think it will certainly not be the last. From here emanates the next real threat of destroying the current system of arms control agreements. And this dangerous process was launched by the United States of America when it unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and then set about and continues today to actively pursue the creation of its global missile defence system. ..."
"... Once again, we are sliding into the times when, instead of the balance of interests and mutual guarantees, it is fear and the balance of mutual destruction that prevent nations from engaging in direct conflict. ..."
"... Today, many types of high-precision weaponry are already close to mass-destruction weapons in terms of their capabilities, and in the event of full renunciation of nuclear weapons or radical reduction of nuclear potential, nations that are leaders in creating and producing high-precision systems will have a clear military advantage. Strategic parity will be disrupted, and this is likely to bring destabilization. The use of a so-called first global pre-emptive strike may become tempting. In short, the risks do not decrease, but intensify. ..."
What we needed to do was to carry out a rational reconstruction and adapt it the new realities
in the system of international relations.
But the United States, having declared itself the winner of the Cold War, saw no need for this.
Instead of establishing a new balance of power, essential for maintaining order and stability,
they took steps that threw the system into sharp and deep imbalance.
The Cold War ended, but it did not end with the signing of a peace treaty with clear and
transparent agreements on respecting existing rules or creating new rules and standards. This
created the impression that the so-called 'victors' in the Cold War had decided to pressure
events and reshape the world to suit their own needs and interests. If the existing system of
international relations, international law and the checks and balances in place got in the way of
these aims, this system was declared worthless, outdated and in need of immediate demolition.
Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with
a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of
managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed
many follies.
We have entered a period of differing interpretations and deliberate silences in world politics.
International law has been forced to retreat over and over by the onslaught of legal
nihilism. Objectivity and justice have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
Arbitrary interpretations and biased assessments have replaced legal norms. At the same time,
total control of the global mass media has made it possible when desired to portray white as
black and black as white.
In a situation where you had domination by one country and its allies, or its satellites
rather, the search for global solutions often turned into an attempt to impose their own
universal recipes. This group's ambitions grew so big that they started presenting the policies
they put together in their corridors of power as the view of the entire international community.
But this is not the case.
The very notion of 'national sovereignty' became a relative value for most countries. In essence,
what was being proposed was the formula: the greater the loyalty towards the world's sole power
centre, the greater this or that ruling regime's legitimacy.
We will have a free discussion afterwards and I will be happy to answer your questions and would
also like to use my right to ask you questions. Let someone try to disprove the arguments that I
just set out during the upcoming discussion.
The measures taken against those who refuse to submit are well-known and have been tried and
tested many times. They include use of force, economic and propaganda pressure, meddling in
domestic affairs, and appeals to a kind of 'supra-legal' legitimacy when they need to justify
illegal intervention in this or that conflict or toppling inconvenient regimes. Of late, we have
increasing evidence too that outright blackmail has been used with regard to a number of leaders.
It is not for nothing that 'big brother' is spending billions of dollars on keeping the whole
world, including its own closest allies, under surveillance.
Let's ask ourselves, how comfortable are we with this, how safe are we, how happy living in this
world, and how fair and rational has it become? Maybe, we have no real reasons to worry, argue
and ask awkward questions? Maybe the United States' exceptional position and the way they are
carrying out their leadership really is a blessing for us all, and their meddling in events all
around the world is bringing peace, prosperity, progress, growth and democracy, and we should
maybe just relax and enjoy it all?
Let me say that this is not the case, absolutely not the case.
A unilateral diktat and imposing one's own models produces the opposite result. Instead of
settling conflicts it leads to their escalation, instead of sovereign and stable states we see
the growing spread of chaos, and instead of democracy there is support for a very dubious public
ranging from open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.
Why do they support such people? They do this because they decide to use them as instruments
along the way in achieving their goals but then burn their fingers and recoil. I never cease to
be amazed by the way that our partners just keep stepping on the same rake, as we say here in
Russia, that is to say, make the same mistake over and over.
They once sponsored Islamic extremist movements to fight the Soviet Union. Those groups got
their battle experience in Afghanistan and later gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The West
if not supported, at least closed its eyes, and, I would say, gave information, political and
financial support to international terrorists' invasion of Russia (we have not forgotten this)
and the Central Asian region's countries. Only after horrific terrorist attacks were committed on
US soil itself did the United States wake up to the common threat of terrorism. Let me remind you
that we were the first country to support the American people back then, the first to react as
friends and partners to the terrible tragedy of September 11.
During my conversations with American and European leaders, I always spoke of the need to fight
terrorism together, as a challenge on a global scale. We cannot resign ourselves to and accept
this threat, cannot cut it into separate pieces using double standards. Our partners expressed
agreement, but a little time passed and we ended up back where we started. First there was the
military operation in Iraq, then in Libya, which got pushed to the brink of falling apart. Why
was Libya pushed into this situation? Today it is a country in danger of breaking apart and has
become a training ground for terrorists.
Only the current Egyptian leadership's determination and wisdom saved this key Arab country from
chaos and having extremists run rampant. In Syria, as in the past, the United States and its
allies started directly financing and arming rebels and allowing them to fill their ranks with
mercenaries from various countries. Let me ask where do these rebels get their money, arms and
military specialists? Where does all this come from? How did the notorious ISIL manage to become
such a powerful group, essentially a real armed force?
As for financing sources, today, the money is coming not just from drugs, production of which
has increased not just by a few percentage points but many-fold, since the international
coalition forces have been present in Afghanistan. You are aware of this. The terrorists are
getting money from selling oil too. Oil is produced in territory controlled by the terrorists,
who sell it at dumping prices, produce it and transport it. But someone buys this oil, resells
it, and makes a profit from it, not thinking about the fact that they are thus financing
terrorists who could come sooner or later to their own soil and sow destruction in their own
countries.
Where do they get new recruits? In Iraq, after Saddam Hussein was toppled, the state's
institutions, including the army, were left in ruins. We said back then, be very, very careful.
You are driving people out into the street, and what will they do there? Don't forget (rightfully
or not) that they were in the leadership of a large regional power, and what are you now turning
them into?
What was the result? Tens of thousands of soldiers, officers and former Baath Party activists
were turned out into the streets and today have joined the rebels' ranks. Perhaps this is what
explains why the Islamic State group has turned out so effective? In military terms, it is acting
very effectively and has some very professional people. Russia warned repeatedly about the
dangers of unilateral military actions, intervening in sovereign states' affairs, and flirting
with extremists and radicals. We insisted on having the groups fighting the central Syrian
government, above all the Islamic State, included on the lists of terrorist organisations. But
did we see any results? We appealed in vain.
We sometimes get the impression that our colleagues and friends are constantly fighting the
consequences of their own policies, throw all their effort into addressing the risks they
themselves have created, and pay an ever-greater price.
Colleagues, this period of unipolar domination has convincingly demonstrated that having only one
power centre does not make global processes more manageable. On the contrary, this kind of
unstable construction has shown its inability to fight the real threats such as regional
conflicts, terrorism, drug trafficking, religious fanaticism, chauvinism and neo-Nazism. At the
same time, it has opened the road wide for inflated national pride, manipulating public opinion
and letting the strong bully and suppress the weak.
Essentially, the unipolar world is simply a means of justifying dictatorship over people and
countries. The unipolar world turned out too uncomfortable, heavy and unmanageable a burden even
for the self-proclaimed leader. Comments along this line were made here just before and I fully
agree with this. This is why we see attempts at this new historic stage to recreate a semblance
of a quasi-bipolar world as a convenient model for perpetuating American leadership. It does not
matter who takes the place of the centre of evil in American propaganda, the USSR's old place as
the main adversary. It could be Iran, as a country seeking to acquire nuclear technology, China,
as the world's biggest economy, or Russia, as a nuclear superpower.
Today, we are seeing new efforts to fragment the world, draw new dividing lines, put together
coalitions not built for something but directed against someone, anyone, create the image of an
enemy as was the case during the Cold War years, and obtain the right to this leadership, or
diktat if you wish. The situation was presented this way during the Cold War. We all understand
this and know this. The United States always told its allies: "We have a common enemy, a terrible
foe, the centre of evil, and we are defending you, our allies, from this foe, and so we have the
right to order you around, force you to sacrifice your political and economic interests and pay
your share of the costs for this collective defence, but we will be the ones in charge of it all
of course." In short, we see today attempts in a new and changing world to reproduce the familiar
models of global management, and all this so as to guarantee their [the US'] exceptional position
and reap political and economic dividends.
But these attempts are increasingly divorced from reality and are in contradiction with the
world's diversity. Steps of this kind inevitably create confrontation and countermeasures and
have the opposite effect to the hoped-for goals. We see what happens when politics rashly starts
meddling in the economy and the logic of rational decisions gives way to the logic of
confrontation that only hurt one's own economic positions and interests, including national
business interests.
Joint economic projects and mutual investment objectively bring countries closer together and
help to smooth out current problems in relations between states. But today, the global business
community faces unprecedented pressure from Western governments. What business, economic
expediency and pragmatism can we speak of when we hear slogans such as "the homeland is in
danger", "the free world is under threat", and "democracy is in jeopardy"? And so everyone needs
to mobilise. That is what a real mobilisation policy looks like.
Sanctions are already undermining the foundations of world trade, the WTO rules and the
principle of inviolability of private property. They are dealing a blow to liberal model of
globalisation based on markets, freedom and competition, which, let me note, is a model that has
primarily benefited precisely the Western countries. And now they risk losing trust as the
leaders of globalisation. We have to ask ourselves, why was this necessary? After all, the United
States' prosperity rests in large part on the trust of investors and foreign holders of dollars
and US securities. This trust is clearly being undermined and signs of disappointment in the
fruits of globalisation are visible now in many countries.
The well-known Cyprus precedent and the politically motivated sanctions have only strengthened
the trend towards seeking to bolster economic and financial sovereignty and countries' or their
regional groups' desire to find ways of protecting themselves from the risks of outside pressure.
We already see that more and more countries are looking for ways to become less dependent on the
dollar and are setting up alternative financial and payments systems and reserve currencies. I
think that our American friends are quite simply cutting the branch they are sitting on. You
cannot mix politics and the economy, but this is what is happening now. I have always thought and
still think today that politically motivated sanctions were a mistake that will harm everyone,
but I am sure that we will come back to this subject later.
We know how these decisions were taken and who was applying the pressure. But let me stress that
Russia is not going to get all worked up, get offended or come begging at anyone's door. Russia
is a self-sufficient country. We will work within the foreign economic environment that has taken
shape, develop domestic production and technology and act more decisively to carry out
transformation. Pressure from outside, as has been the case on past occasions, will only
consolidate our society, keep us alert and make us concentrate on our main development goals.
Of course the sanctions are a hindrance. They are trying to hurt us through these sanctions,
block our development and push us into political, economic and cultural isolation, force us into
backwardness in other words. But let me say yet again that the world is a very different place
today. We have no intention of shutting ourselves off from anyone and choosing some kind of
closed development road, trying to live in autarky. We are always open to dialogue, including on
normalising our economic and political relations. We are counting here on the pragmatic approach
and position of business communities in the leading countries.
Some are saying today that Russia is supposedly turning its back on Europe - such words were
probably spoken already here too during the discussions - and is looking for new business
partners, above all in Asia. Let me say that this is absolutely not the case. Our active policy
in the Asian-Pacific region began not just yesterday and not in response to sanctions, but is a
policy that we have been following for a good many years now. Like many other countries,
including Western countries, we saw that Asia is playing an ever greater role in the world, in
the economy and in politics, and there is simply no way we can afford to overlook these
developments.
Let me say again that everyone is doing this, and we will do so to, all the more so as a large
part of our country is geographically in Asia. Why should we not make use of our competitive
advantages in this area? It would be extremely shortsighted not to do so.
Developing economic ties with these countries and carrying out joint integration projects also
creates big incentives for our domestic development. Today's demographic, economic and cultural
trends all suggest that dependence on a sole superpower will objectively decrease. This is
something that European and American experts have been talking and writing about too.
Perhaps developments in global politics will mirror the developments we are seeing in the global
economy, namely, intensive competition for specific niches and frequent change of leaders in
specific areas. This is entirely possible.
There is no doubt that humanitarian factors such as education, science, healthcare and culture
are playing a greater role in global competition. This also has a big impact on international
relations, including because this 'soft power' resource will depend to a great extent on real
achievements in developing human capital rather than on sophisticated propaganda tricks.
At the same time, the formation of a so-called polycentric world (I would also like to draw
attention to this, colleagues) in and of itself does not improve stability; in fact, it is more
likely to be the opposite. The goal of reaching global equilibrium is turning into a fairly
difficult puzzle, an equation with many unknowns.
So, what is in store for us if we choose not to live by the rules – even if they may be strict
and inconvenient – but rather live without any rules at all? And that scenario is entirely
possible; we cannot rule it out, given the tensions in the global situation. Many predictions can
already be made, taking into account current trends, and unfortunately, they are not optimistic.
If we do not create a clear system of mutual commitments and agreements, if we do not build the
mechanisms for managing and resolving crisis situations, the symptoms of global anarchy will
inevitably grow.
Today, we already see a sharp increase in the likelihood of a whole set of violent conflicts with
either direct or indirect participation by the world's major powers. And the risk factors include
not just traditional multinational conflicts, but also the internal instability in separate
states, especially when we talk about nations located at the intersections of major states'
geopolitical interests, or on the border of cultural, historical, and economic civilizational
continents.
Ukraine, which I'm sure was discussed at length and which we will discuss some more, is one
of the example of such sorts of conflicts that affect international power balance, and I think it
will certainly not be the last. From here emanates the next real threat of destroying the current
system of arms control agreements. And this dangerous process was launched by the United States
of America when it unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, and then
set about and continues today to actively pursue the creation of its global missile defence
system.
Colleagues, friends,
I want to point out that we did not start this. Once again, we are sliding into the times
when, instead of the balance of interests and mutual guarantees, it is fear and the balance of
mutual destruction that prevent nations from engaging in direct conflict. In absence of
legal and political instruments, arms are once again becoming the focal point of the global
agenda; they are used wherever and however, without any UN Security Council sanctions. And if the
Security Council refuses to produce such decisions, then it is immediately declared to be an
outdated and ineffective instrument.
Many states do not see any other ways of ensuring their sovereignty but to obtain their own
bombs. This is extremely dangerous. We insist on continuing talks; we are not only in favour of
talks, but insist on continuing talks to reduce nuclear arsenals. The less nuclear weapons we
have in the world, the better. And we are ready for the most serious, concrete discussions on
nuclear disarmament – but only serious discussions without any double standards.
What do I mean? Today, many types of high-precision weaponry are already close to
mass-destruction weapons in terms of their capabilities, and in the event of full renunciation of
nuclear weapons or radical reduction of nuclear potential, nations that are leaders in creating
and producing high-precision systems will have a clear military advantage. Strategic parity will
be disrupted, and this is likely to bring destabilization. The use of a so-called first global
pre-emptive strike may become tempting. In short, the risks do not decrease, but intensify.
The next obvious threat is the further escalation of ethnic, religious, and social conflicts.
Such conflicts are dangerous not only as such, but also because they create zones of anarchy,
lawlessness, and chaos around them, places that are comfortable for terrorists and criminals,
where piracy, human trafficking, and drug trafficking flourish.
Incidentally, at the time, our colleagues tried to somehow manage these processes, use regional
conflicts and design 'colour revolutions' to suit their interests, but the genie escaped the
bottle. It looks like the controlled chaos theory fathers themselves do not know what to do with
it; there is disarray in their ranks.
We closely follow the discussions by both the ruling elite and the expert community. It is enough
to look at the headlines of the Western press over the last year. The same people are called
fighters for democracy, and then Islamists; first they write about revolutions and then call them
riots and upheavals. The result is obvious: the further expansion of global chaos.
Colleagues, given the global situation, it is time to start agreeing on fundamental things. This
is incredibly important and necessary; this is much better than going back to our own corners.
The more we all face common problems, the more we find ourselves in the same boat, so to speak.
And the logical way out is in cooperation between nations, societies, in finding collective
answers to increasing challenges, and in joint risk management. Granted, some of our partners,
for some reason, remember this only when it suits their interests.
Practical experience shows that joint answers to challenges are not always a panacea; and we need
to understand this. Moreover, in most cases, they are hard to reach; it is not easy to overcome
the differences in national interests, the subjectivity of different approaches, particularly
when it comes to nations with different cultural and historical traditions. But nevertheless, we
have examples when, having common goals and acting based on the same criteria, together we
achieved real success.
Let me remind you about solving the problem of chemical weapons in Syria, and the substantive
dialogue on the Iranian nuclear programme, as well as our work on North Korean issues, which also
has some positive results. Why can't we use this experience in the future to solve local and
global challenges?
What could be the legal, political, and economic basis for a new world order that would allow for
stability and security, while encouraging healthy competition, not allowing the formation of new
monopolies that hinder development? It is unlikely that someone could provide absolutely
exhaustive, ready-made solutions right now. We will need extensive work with participation by a
wide range of governments, global businesses, civil society, and such expert platforms as ours.
However, it is obvious that success and real results are only possible if key participants in
international affairs can agree on harmonising basic interests, on reasonable self-restraint, and
set the example of positive and responsible leadership. We must clearly identify where unilateral
actions end and we need to apply multilateral mechanisms, and as part of improving the
effectiveness of international law, we must resolve the dilemma between the actions by
international community to ensure security and human rights and the principle of national
sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of any state.
Those very collisions increasingly lead to arbitrary external interference in complex internal
processes, and time and again, they provoke dangerous conflicts between leading global players.
The issue of maintaining sovereignty becomes almost paramount in maintaining and strengthening
global stability.
Clearly, discussing the criteria for the use of external force is extremely difficult; it is
practically impossible to separate it from the interests of particular nations. However, it is
far more dangerous when there are no agreements that are clear to everyone, when no clear
conditions are set for necessary and legal interference.
I will add that international relations must be based on international law, which itself should
rest on moral principles such as justice, equality and truth. Perhaps most important is respect
for one's partners and their interests. This is an obvious formula, but simply following it could
radically change the global situation.
I am certain that if there is a will, we can restore the effectiveness of the international and
regional institutions system. We do not even need to build anything anew, from the scratch; this
is not a "greenfield," especially since the institutions created after World War II are quite
universal and can be given modern substance, adequate to manage the current situation.
This is true of improving the work of the UN, whose central role is irreplaceable, as well as the
OSCE, which, over the course of 40 years, has proven to be a necessary mechanism for ensuring
security and cooperation in the Euro-Atlantic region. I must say that even now, in trying to
resolve the crisis in southeast Ukraine, the OSCE is playing a very positive role.
In light of the fundamental changes in the international environment, the increase in
uncontrollability and various threats, we need a new global consensus of responsible forces. It's
not about some local deals or a division of spheres of influence in the spirit of classic
diplomacy, or somebody's complete global domination. I think that we need a new version of
interdependence. We should not be afraid of it. On the contrary, this is a good instrument for
harmonising positions.
This is particularly relevant given the strengthening and growth of certain regions on the
planet, which process objectively requires institutionalisation of such new poles, creating
powerful regional organisations and developing rules for their interaction. Cooperation between
these centres would seriously add to the stability of global security, policy and economy. But in
order to establish such a dialogue, we need to proceed from the assumption that all regional
centres and integration projects forming around them need to have equal rights to development, so
that they can complement each other and nobody can force them into conflict or opposition
artificially. Such destructive actions would break down ties between states, and the states
themselves would be subjected to extreme hardship, or perhaps even total destruction.
I would like to remind you of the last year's events. We have told our American and European
partners that hasty backstage decisions, for example, on Ukraine's association with the EU, are
fraught with serious risks to the economy. We didn't even say anything about politics; we spoke
only about the economy, saying that such steps, made without any prior arrangements, touch on the
interests of many other nations, including Russia as Ukraine's main trade partner, and that a
wide discussion of the issues is necessary. Incidentally, in this regard, I will remind you that,
for example, the talks on Russia's accession to the WTO lasted 19 years. This was very difficult
work, and a certain consensus was reached.
Why am I bringing this up? Because in implementing Ukraine's association project, our partners
would come to us with their goods and services through the back gate, so to speak, and we did not
agree to this, nobody asked us about this. We had discussions on all topics related to Ukraine's
association with the EU, persistent discussions, but I want to stress that this was done in an
entirely civilised manner, indicating possible problems, showing the obvious reasoning and
arguments. Nobody wanted to listen to us and nobody wanted to talk. They simply told us: this is
none of your business, point, end of discussion. Instead of a comprehensive but – I stress –
civilised dialogue, it all came down to a government overthrow; they plunged the country into
chaos, into economic and social collapse, into a civil war with enormous casualties.
Why? When I ask my colleagues why, they no longer have an answer; nobody says anything. That's
it. Everyone's at a loss, saying it just turned out that way. Those actions should not have been
encouraged – it wouldn't have worked. After all (I already spoke about this), former Ukrainian
President Yanukovych signed everything, agreed with everything. Why do it? What was the point?
What is this, a civilised way of solving problems? Apparently, those who constantly throw
together new 'colour revolutions' consider themselves 'brilliant artists' and simply cannot stop.
I am certain that the work of integrated associations, the cooperation of regional structures,
should be built on a transparent, clear basis; the Eurasian Economic Union's formation process is
a good example of such transparency. The states that are parties to this project informed their
partners of their plans in advance, specifying the parameters of our association, the principles
of its work, which fully correspond with the World Trade Organisation rules.
I will add that we would also have welcomed the start of a concrete dialogue between the Eurasian
and European Union. Incidentally, they have almost completely refused us this as well, and it is
also unclear why – what is so scary about it?
And, of course, with such joint work, we would think that we need to engage in dialogue (I spoke
about this many times and heard agreement from many of our western partners, at least in Europe)
on the need to create a common space for economic and humanitarian cooperation stretching all the
way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
Colleagues, Russia made its choice. Our priorities are further improving our democratic and open
economy institutions, accelerated internal development, taking into account all the positive
modern trends in the world, and consolidating society based on traditional values and patriotism.
We have an integration-oriented, positive, peaceful agenda; we are working actively with our
colleagues in the Eurasian Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS and other
partners. This agenda is aimed at developing ties between governments, not dissociating. We are
not planning to cobble together any blocs or get involved in an exchange of blows.
The allegations and statements that Russia is trying to establish some sort of empire,
encroaching on the sovereignty of its neighbours, are groundless. Russia does not need any kind
of special, exclusive place in the world – I want to emphasise this. While respecting the
interests of others, we simply want for our own interests to be taken into account and for our
position to be respected.
We are well aware that the world has entered an era of changes and global transformations, when
we all need a particular degree of caution, the ability to avoid thoughtless steps. In the years
after the Cold War, participants in global politics lost these qualities somewhat. Now, we need
to remember them. Otherwise, hopes for a peaceful, stable development will be a dangerous
illusion, while today's turmoil will simply serve as a prelude to the collapse of world order.
Yes, of course, I have already said that building a more stable world order is a difficult task.
We are talking about long and hard work. We were able to develop rules for interaction after
World War II, and we were able to reach an agreement in Helsinki in the 1970s. Our common duty is
to resolve this fundamental challenge at this new stage of development.
Looks like color revolutions became less effective in xUSSR space as more and more people started to understand the mechanics and
financial source of "pro-democracy" (aka pro-Washington) protesters. BTW what a skillful and shameless presstitute is this
Shaun Walker
Notable quotes:
"... The State Department funding of NGOs in Ukraine promoting the right kind of democracy to the tune of $5 billion is a matter
of record, courtesy of Fuck the EU Nuland. ..."
"... As for CIA involvement, the director of the CIA has visited Ukraine at least twice in 2014 - once under a false identity. If
the head of the equivalent Russian organisation had made similar visits, that would be a problem, no? ..."
"... Just because some Russians are paranoid about US interference, that doesnt mean they are wrong. ..."
"... International Observer: The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs ..."
"... This article contains unacceptable, apparently carefully wrapped up, distortions of what is happening in Russia. A piece of
journalism which tell us something about the level of propaganda that most mainstream media in our free west have set up in the attempt
to organize yet another coup, this time under the thick walls of the Kremlin. This newspaper seem to pursue this goal, as it shows to
have taken sides: stand by NATO and of course the British interests. If this implies misguiding the readers on what is taking place
in Russia\Ukraine or elsewhere (Syria for example) well...thats too bad, the answer would be. Goals justify the means...so forget about
honesty, fair play and truthfullness. If it needs to be a war (we have decided so, because it is convenient) then... lies are not lies...but
clever tools that we are allowed to use in order to destroy our enemy. ..."
"... The patriots are most probably a neurotic sort of reaction to what most Russians now perceive to be an attempt from NSA, CIA..and
more in general of the US/EU geo-political strategies (much more of the US, of course, as the EU and Britain simply follow the instructions)
to dismantle the present Russian system (the political establishment first and then the ARMY). ..."
"... Contrary to what is happening here in the west (where all media seem to the have joined the club of the one-way-thinking against
Russia), some important media of that country do have a chance to criticize Putin and his policies. ..."
"... a minority can express their opinion, as long as they do not attempt to overthrow the parliament, which is an expression of
Russian people. ..."
"... I will generalize here - if by those you mean the West you are mistaken. The vast majority of its populace are carrying a huge
burden of personal debt - it is the bank that owns their houses and new autos. There is a tiny stratum that indeed is wildly wealthy,
frequently referred to as the 1%, but in fact is much less numerous. ..."
"... If you scrap off the BS from this article they do have a point, because it has been a popular tactic of a certain country to
change another countries government *Cough* America *Cough* by organising protests/riots within a target country ..."
"... if that doesnt work they escalate that to fire fights and if that doesnt work they move onto say Downing a aeroplane and very
quickly claiming its the other side fault without having any evidence or claim they have WMDs well anything to try to take the moral
high ground on the situation even thou they caused the situation usual for selfish, arrogant and greedy reasons. ..."
"... Wow, this is quite an assertion that Russians are poorer than Indians. I have been to India and I have been to Russia and I
dont like using anecdotes to make a point. I can tell you that I have never seen as much poverty as in India. ..."
"... Also, I doubt youve visited many small and lesser known cities in Russia. Its as if the Soviet Union had just collapsed and
they were forgotten. Worse, actually. ..."
"... Werent the Maidan protests anti-democracy since they used violence to remove a democratically elected leader? Just another
anti-ruskie hit piece from the Guardian. ..."
"... In the US you only get 2 choices - it may be twice as many as you get with a dictatorship but its hardly democracy. ..."
"... Also the election of the coup government was unconstitutional under article 111 of the Ukraines own Constitution (Goggle -
check for yourself). This is an undisputed and uncomfortable fact which the US and the EU never mention (never) when drawn on the issue.
..."
"... Since the day one the West and the GDR used nazis for their laboratories, clandestine and civil services...State owned museums
still refuse to give back artwork to their rightful owners that were robbed during 1930-45. ..."
"... A more interesting story would have been the similarities between this anti maidan group in Russia and Maidan in Kiev. Both
have have their military arm, are dangerous and violent, and both very nationalistic and right wing. Both appear to have strong links
to politicians as well. Such an analysis might show that Russian and Ukrainian nationalist groups have more in common than they would
like to believe. ..."
"... A very important difference is the Russians are defending their elected government. The Ukrainians were hired by the West to
promote a coup detat against an elected government, this against the will of the majority in Ukraine and only 3 months from general
election in the country. The coup was indeed a way of stopping the elections. ..."
"... Oh I see Russia has re-entered the media cross hairs in a timely fashion. I wonder whats going to happen in the coming weeks.
..."
"... And the US will continue to murder innocent civilians in the Middle East, Northern Africa and wherever else it wants to plant
its bloody army boots. And will also continue to use its NGOs and CIA to foment colour revolutions in other countries, as it did in
Ukraine ..."
"... What kind of democracy is the US when you have a federal agency spying on everything you do and say? Do you think they are
just going to sit on what information they think they get? ..."
"... Yes. Decisions should be made in Kiev, but why are they being made in Washington then? ..."
"... Potroshenko was elected with a turnout of 46%. Of this he scored say over half, hardly a majority ..."
"... "Under the slogan of fighting for democracy there is instead total fear, total propaganda, and no freedom." ..."
"... After witnessing what happened during Maidan, and subsequently to Ukraine, I understand some Russians reluctance to see a similar
scenario played out in Russia. That being: am also wary of vISISantism. ..."
"... As for the anti-Maidan quotes - of course that was organised. Nuland:, for crying out loud. Kerry and others were there, Brennan
was there. Of course the Western powers were partly involved. And it wasnt peaceful protests, it was violence directed against elected
officials, throwing Molotov cocktails at policemen. It culminated in the burning alive of 40+ people in Odessa. ..."
"... Professor Gregory has, dishonestly, arrived at his 15% figure by taking the minimum figure for Crimea for both turnout and
for voters for union, calling them the maximum, and then ignoring Sevastopol. He has also pretended the report is based on the "real
results," when it seems to be little more than the imprecise estimates of a small working group who were apparently against the idea
of the referendum in the first place. ..."
"... This is not an unexpected result. EU and US governments are going out of way to stir peoples opinion in the former Soviet republics.
..."
"... There were students from Lviv who were given college credit for being at Maidan. ..."
"... There are specific politicians who rejected participation in normal political process but chosen street riots instead. ..."
"... Is the US training and funding the Ukraine opposition? Nuland herself claimed in December that the US had spent $5 billion
since the 1990s on democratization programs in Ukraine. On what would she like us to believe the money had been spent? ..."
"... All of this stems from the stupid EU meddling in Ukraine. We shouldnt get involved in the EUs regime change agenda. Time to
leave the EU. ..."
"... Putinbot = someone who has a different opinion to you ..."
"... How about the reporting on the indiscriminate slaughter of Eastern Ukrainians by Kievs government troops and Nazi battalions??
..."
"... pro-democracy protesters? like ISIL, Right Sector, UÇK? They are right ..."
The group, which calls itself anti-Maidan,: Thursday it would fight any attempts to bring Russians on to the streets to protest
against the government. Its name is a reference to the Maidan protests in Kiev last year that eventually led to the toppling of former
Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych.
"All street movements and color revolutions lead to blood. Women, children and old people suffer first", Dmitry Sablin, previously
a long-standing MP from President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, who recently became a senator in Russia's upper house of
parliament.
"It is not acceptable for the minority to force its will upon the majority, as happened in Ukraine," he added. "Under the slogan
of fighting for democracy there is instead total fear, total propaganda, and no freedom."
BINGO....well done. You've got Neo Nazi's, US Aid, CIA infiltrators, indiscriminate slaughter and Nazi battalions....all
in just 8 sentences. great job
I guess these are exactly the sort of people who will enrich the EU:
The State Department funding of NGOs in Ukraine "promoting the right kind of democracy" to the tune of $5 billion is a
matter of record, courtesy of "Fuck the EU" Nuland.
As for CIA involvement, the director of the CIA has visited Ukraine at least twice in 2014 - once under a false identity.
If the head of the equivalent Russian organisation had made similar visits, that would be a problem, no?
TuleCarbonari -> garethgj 16 Jan 2015 06:21
Yes, he should leave Syria to paid mercenaries. Do you really want us to believe you still don't know those fighters in Syria
are George Soros' militias? Come on man, go get yourself informed.
jgbg -> Strummered 16 Jan 2015 06:19
You can't campaign for greater democracy, it's dangerous, it's far too democratic.
The USA cannot pay people to campaign in Russia to have the right kind of democracy i.e. someone acceptable to the US government
at the helm. Instead of funding anti-government NGOs in other countries, perhaps the USA should first spend the money fixing the
huge inequalities and other problems in their own country.
jgbg -> Glenn J. Hill 16 Jan 2015 06:12
What???? Have you been smoking?? Sorry but your Putin Thugs are NOT funded by my country.
I think he is referring the the NGOs which have spent large sums of money on "promoting democracy" in Georgia and Ukraine.
Many of these are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the US State Department. Some have funding from organisations
which are in turn, funded by George Soros. These organisations were seen to back the Rose Revolution in Georgia and both revolutions
in Ukraine. Georgia ended up with a president who worked as a lawyer in a US firm linked to the right wing of the Republican Party.
Ukraine has a prime minister who was brought up in the USA and a president whom a US ambassador to Ukraine described as "our insider"
(in a US Embassy cable leaked by Wikileaks).
The funding of similar organisations in Russia (e.g. Soldiers' Mothers) has been exposed since a law was brought in, requiring
foreign funded NGOs to register and publish annual accounts.
Just because some Russians are paranoid about US interference, that doesn't mean they are wrong.
Anette Mor -> Hektor Uranga 16 Jan 2015 06:09
He was let out to form a party and take part in Moscow mayor election. He got respectable 20%. But shown no platform other
than anti- corruption. There is anti-corruption hysteria in Russia already. People asked for positive agenda. He got none. The
party base disintegrated. The court against him was because there was a case filed. I can agree the state might found this timely.
But we cannot blame on Russian state absence of positive position in Navalny himself. He is reactive on current issues but got
zero vision. Russia is a merit based society.
They look for brilliance in the leader. He is just a different caliber. Can contribute but not lead. His best way is to choose
a district and stand for a parliament seat. The state already shown his is welcomed to enter big politics. Just need to stop lookibg
to abroad for scripts. The list of names for US sanction was taking from his and his mates lists. After such exposure he lost
any groups with many Russians.
Anette Mor -> notoriousANDinfamous 16 Jan 2015 05:50
I do not disregard positive side of democracy or negative side of dictatorship. I just offer a different scale. Put value of
every human life above any ideology. The west is full of aggressive radicals from animal activists and greens to extremist gays
and atheists. There is a need to downgrade some concepts and upgrade other, so yhe measures are universal. Bombing for democracy
is equaly bad as bombing for personal power.
Anette Mor -> gilstra 16 Jan 2015 05:41
This is really not Guardian problem. They got every right to choose anti-Russian rant as the main topic. The problem is the
balance. Nobody watching it and the media as a whole distorting the picture. Double standards are not good too. RT to stay permitted
in the UK was told to interrupt every person they interview expressing directly opposite view. Might be OK with some theoretical
conversation. But how you going to interrupt mother who just most a child by argument in favor of the killer? The regulator:C
is out of their reach. But guardian should not be. Yet every material is one sided.
Asimpleguest -> romans
International Observer: ''The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs''
PeraIlic
"Decisions should be made in Moscow and not in Washington or Brussels," Nkolai Starikov, a nationalist writer and marginal
politician.
Never mind that he's marginal politician. This man really knows how to express himself briefly. An Interview with Popular Russian
Author and Politician Nikolai Starikov:
Those defending NATO expansion say that those countries wanted to be part of NATO.
Okay. But Cuba also wanted to house Soviet missiles voluntarily. If America did not object to Russian missiles in Cuba,
would you support Ukraine joining NATO?
That would be a great trust-building measure on their part, and Russia would feel that America is a friend.
imperfetto
This article contains unacceptable, apparently carefully wrapped up, distortions of what is happening in Russia. A piece
of journalism which tell us something about the level of propaganda that most mainstream media in our 'free' west have set up
in the attempt to organize yet another coup, this time under the thick walls of the Kremlin. This newspaper seem to pursue this
goal, as it shows to have taken sides: stand by NATO and of course the British interests. If this implies misguiding the readers
on what is taking place in Russia\Ukraine or elsewhere (Syria for example) well...that's too bad, the answer would be. Goals justify
the means...so forget about honesty, fair play and truthfullness. If it needs to be a war (we have decided so, because it is convenient)
then... lies are not lies...but clever tools that we are allowed to use in order to destroy our enemy.
The patriots are most probably a neurotic sort of reaction to what most Russians now perceive to be an attempt from NSA,
CIA..and more in general of the US/EU geo-political strategies (much more of the US, of course, as the EU and Britain simply follow
the instructions) to dismantle the present Russian system (the political establishment first and then the ARMY).
The idea is to create an internal turmoil through some pretexts (gay, feminism, scandals...etc.) in the hope that a growing
movement of protesters may finally shake up the 'palace' and foster the conditions for a coupe to take place. Then the right people
will occupy the key chairs. Who are these subdued figures to be? They would be corrupted oligarchs, allowing the US to guide,
control the Russian public life (haven't we noticed that three important ministers in Kiev are AMERICAN citizens!)
But, from what I understand, Russia is a democratic country. Its leader has been elected by the voters. Contrary to what
is happening here in the west (where all media seem to the have joined the club of the one-way-thinking against Russia), some
important media of that country do have a chance to criticize Putin and his policies. That's right, in a democratic republic.
But, instead, the attempt to enact another Maidan, that is a FASCIST assault to the DUMA, would require a due response.
Thus, perhaps we could without any Patriots of the sort, that may feed the pernicious attention of western media. There should
merely be the enforcement of the law:
a minority can express their opinion, as long as they do not attempt to overthrow the parliament, which is an expression
of Russian people.
VladimirM
"The 'orange beast' is sharpening its teeth and looking to Russia,":e Surgeon, whose real name is Alexander Zaldostanov.
Actually, he used a Russian word "зверек", not "зверь". The latter can be rendered as "beast" but what he:s closer to "rodent",
a small animal. So, using this word he just stressed his contemptious attitude rather than a degree of threat.
These patriotic groups do seem extreme, but probably less extreme and odd than many of the current Ukrainian crop of politicians.
Here is an article from the New York Observer that will get you up to speed....
The New York Observer:The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs
Robert Sandlin -> GreenKnighht
Did you forget the people in charge of the Ukraine then were Ukrainian communists.That many of the deaths were also ethnic
Russian-Ukrainians.And the ones making policy in the USSR as a whole,in that period were mostly not ethnic-Russians.The leader
was Georgian,his secret police chief and many of their enforcers were Jewish-Soviets.And his closest helpers were also mostly
non-ethnic Russians.Recruited from all the important ethnic groups in the USSR,including many Ukrainians.It is a canard of the
Wests to blame Russia for the famine that also killed many Russians.I'm sick of hearing the bs from the West over that tragic
time trying to stir Russophobia.
seventh
Well, you know a government is seriously in the shit when it has to employ biker gangs to defend it.
Robert Sandlin -> seventh
Really? The government doesn't employ them. Defending the government is the job of the police and military. These civilian
volunteers are only helping to show traitors in the pay of Westerners that the common people won't tolerate treason like happened
in Ukraine, to strike Russia.Good for them,that should let potential 5th columnists know their bs isn't wanted in Russia.
Bulagen
I watch here in full swing manipulation of public opinion of Europeans, who imagines that they have "democracy" and "freedom
of speech". All opinions, alternative General line, aimed at all discredit Russia in the eyes of the population of Europe ruthlessly
removed the wording that Putin bots hinder communication "civilized public." And I am even more convinced that all this hysteria
about "the problems of democracy in Russia" is nothing more than an attempt to sell Denyen horse (the so-called democratic values)
to modern Trojans (Russians).
jezzam -> Bulagen
All the wealthiest, healthiest and happiest societies adhere to "so-called democratic values". They would also greatly benefit
the Russian people. Putin opposes these values purely because they would threaten his power.
sashasmirnoff -> jezzam
The "wealthiest, healthiest and happiest societies"? That is description of whom?
I will generalize here - if by those you mean the "West" you are mistaken. The vast majority of it's populace are carrying
a huge burden of personal debt - it is the bank that owns their houses and new autos. There is a tiny stratum that indeed is wildly
wealthy, frequently referred to as the 1%, but in fact is much less numerous.
The West is generally regarded as being the least healthy society, largely due to horrifying diet, sedentary lifestyle,
and considerable stress due to (amongst other things) the aforementioned struggle to not drown in huge personal debt.
I'm not certain as to how you qualify or quantify "happiness", but the West is also experiencing a mental health crisis, manifested
in aberrant behaviour, wild consumption of pharmaceuticals to treat or drown out depression, suicide, high rates of incarceration
etc. All symptoms of a deeply unhappy and unhealthy society.
One more thing - the supposed wealth and happiness of the West is predicated on the poverty and misery of those the West colonizes
and exploits. The last thing on Earth the West would like to see is the extension of "democratic values" to those unfortunates.
That would totally ruin the World Order.
Robert Sandlin -> kawarthan
Well the Ukrainians have the corner on Black and Brown shirts.So those colors are already taken.Blue,Red,White,maybe those?
Paultoo -> Robert Sandlin
Looking at the picture of that "patriotic" Russian biker it seems that Ukraine don´t have the corner on black shirts!
WardwarkOwner
Why do these uprisings/ internal conflicts seem to happen to energy producing countries or those that are on major oil/gas
pipeline routes far more often than other countries?
Jackblob -> WardwarkOwner
I don't see any uprising in Canada, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China, Mexico, the UAE, Iran, Norway, Qatar, etc.
So what exactly is your point?
Petros -> Sotrep Jackblob
Well there is problem in Sudan Iraq Syria Libya Nigeria . you have conflicts made up by USA to change governments and get raw
materials . so ward is right . you just pretending to be blind . in Mexico ppl dying pretty much each day from corrupt people
.
PullingTheStrings
If you scrap off the BS from this article they do have a point, because it has been a popular tactic of a certain country
to change another countries government *Cough* America *Cough* by organising protests/riots within a target country
if that doesnt work they escalate that to fire fights and if that doesn't work they move onto say Downing a aeroplane and
very quickly claiming its the other side fault without having any evidence or claim they have WMD's well anything to try to take
the moral high ground on the situation even thou they caused the situation usual for selfish, arrogant and greedy reasons.
Jackblob -> PullingTheStrings
For some reason I do not trust you to discern the BS from the truth since your entire comment is an act of deflection.
The truth is most Russians are very poor, more poor than the people of India. This latest economic turmoil will make it even
worse. Meanwhile, Putin and a handful of his cronies hold all the wealth. He proved he did not care about his people when he sent
the FSB to bomb Moscow apartment buildings to start a war in Chechnya and ultimately to cancel elections.
Now Putin sees the potential for widespread protests and he is preparing to confront any protests with violent vISISante groups
like those seen in other repressive countries.
Bob Vavich -> Jackblob
Wow, this is quite an assertion that Russians are poorer than Indians. I have been to India and I have been to Russia and
I don't like using anecdotes to make a point. I can tell you that I have never seen as much poverty as in India.
I can also tell you that when I drove through the low income neighborhood of Detroit or Houston, I felt like I was in a post
apocalyptic world. Burned out and boarded up houses. Loitering and crime ridden streets. I can go on and on about social injustice.
Regardless your comments are even more slanted than the assertion you are making about "Pulling the Strings".
Jackblob -> Bob Vavich
I was just as surprised to learn that Indians earn more than Russians. My source for that info comes from PBS's latest broadcast
of Frontline entitled "Putin's Way".
Also, I doubt you've visited many small and lesser known cities in Russia. It's as if the Soviet Union had just collapsed
and they were forgotten. Worse, actually.
Hamdog
Weren't the Maidan protests anti-democracy since they used violence to remove a democratically elected leader? Just another
anti-ruskie hit piece from the Guardian.
We in the West love democracy, assuming you vote for the right person.
In the US you only get 2 choices - it may be twice as many as you get with a dictatorship but it's hardly democracy.
E1ouise -> Hamdog
Yanukovych was voted out of office by the *elected parliament* after he fled to Russia. Why don't you know this yet?
secondiceberg -> E1ouise
Excuse me, he was forced out of the country at gunpoint before the opposition "voted him out" the next day.
Bosula -> secondiceberg
Yes. That is correct. And armed Maidan thugs (Svoboda and Right Sector) stood around the Rada with weapons while the vote taken.
Also the 'election' of the coup government was unconstitutional under article 111 of the Ukraine's own Constitution (Goggle
- check for yourself). This is an undisputed and uncomfortable 'fact' which the US and the EU never mention (never) when drawn
on the issue.
Sourcrowd
The soviet union didn't go through some kind of denazification akin to Germany after it disintegrated. Russia today looks more
and more like Germany after WWI - full of self pity and blaming everyone but themselves for their own failures.
Down2dirt -> Sourcrowd
I would like to hear more about that denazification of Germany and how did that go.
Since the day one the West and the GDR used nazis for their laboratories, clandestine and civil services...State owned
museums still refuse to give back artwork to their rightful owners that were robbed during 1930-45.
I don' t condone Putin's and Russia polity (one of the most neoliberal countries), but you appear to be clueless about this
particular subject and don' t know what you are talking about.
Bosula -> Sourcrowd
Are you thinking about Ukraine here, maybe?
Bosula
A more interesting story would have been the similarities between this anti maidan group in Russia and Maidan in Kiev.
Both have have their military arm, are dangerous and violent, and both very nationalistic and right wing. Both appear to have
strong links to politicians as well.
Such an analysis might show that Russian and Ukrainian nationalist groups have more in common than they would like to believe.
TuleCarbonari -> Bosula
A very important difference is the Russians are defending their elected government. The Ukrainians were hired by the West
to promote a coup d'etat against an elected government, this against the will of the majority in Ukraine and only 3 months from
general election in the country. The coup was indeed a way of stopping the elections.
Flinryan
Oh I see Russia has re-entered the media cross hairs in a timely fashion. I wonder what's going to happen in the coming
weeks.
MarcelFromage -> Flinryan
I wonder what's going to happen in the coming weeks.
Nothing new - the Russian Federation will continue its illegal occupation of Crimea and continue to bring death and destruction
to eastern Ukraine. And generally be a pain for the rest of the international community.
secondiceberg -> MarcelFromage
And the US will continue to murder innocent civilians in the Middle East, Northern Africa and wherever else it wants to
plant its bloody army boots. And will also continue to use its NGO's and CIA to foment colour revolutions in other countries,
as it did in Ukraine. Kiev had its revolution. Eastern Ukraine is having its revolution. Tit for Tat.
Velska
CIF seems flooded by Putin's sock puppets, i.e. mindless robots who just repeat statements favouring pro-Putinist dictatorship.
To be sure, there's much to hope for in the US democracy, where bribery is legal. I'm not sure whether bribery in Russia is
a legal requirement or just a fact of life. But certainly Russia is far from democratic, has actually never been.
Bosula -> Velska
You can take your sock off now and wipe your hands clean.
secondiceberg -> Velska
What kind of democracy is the US when you have a federal agency spying on everything you do and say? Do you think they
are just going to sit on what information they think they get?
What will you do when they come knocking at your door, abduct you for some silly comment you made, and then rendition you to
another country so that you will not be able to claim any legal rights? Let Russia look after itself in the face of "war-footing"
threats from the U.S.
Fight for social justice and freedom in your own country.
cichonio
"All street movements and colour revolutions lead to blood. Women, children and old people suffer first,"
That's why they are ready to use weapons and violence against a foe who hasn't really been seen yet.
Also,
"Decisions should be made in Moscow and not in Washington or Brussels,"
I think decisions about Ukraine should be made in Kiev.
Bosula -> cichonio
Yes. Decisions should be made in Kiev, but why are they being made in Washington then? How much does this compromise
Kiev as its agenda is very different from the agenda the US have with Russia. Ukraine is weakened daily with its civil war and
the killing its own people, but this conflict benefits the US as further weakens and places Russia in a new cold war type environment.
Why are key government ministries in Ukraine (like Finance) headed by overseas nationals. Utterly bizarre.
secondiceberg -> cichonio
So do I, by the legally elected government that was illegally deposed at gunpoint. Ukraine actually has two presidents. Only
one of them is legal and it is not Poroshenko.
Bob Vavich -> cichonio
Yes, if they are taken by all Ukrainians and not a minority. Potroshenko was elected with a turnout of 46%. Of this he
scored say over half, hardly a majority. More likely, the right wing Western Galicia came out to vote and the Russian speaking
were discouraged. What would one expect when the new government first decree is to eliminate Russian as a second official language.
Mind you a language spoken by the majority. Makes you think? Maybe. Probably not.
SHappens
"Personally I am a fan of the civilised, democratic intelligent way of deciding conflicts, but if we need to take up weapons
then of course I will be ready,":lia Bereznikova, the ultimate fighting champion.
This quite illustrates Russians way of doing. Smart, open to dialogue and patient but dont mess with them for too long. Once
on their horses nothing will stop them.
They are ready to fight against the anti Russian sentiment injected from outside citing Ukraine and Navalny-Soros, not against
democracy.
"It is not acceptable for the minority to force its will upon the majority, as happened in Ukraine," he added. "Under
the slogan of fighting for democracy there is instead total fear, total propaganda, and no freedom."
ploughmanlunch
After witnessing what happened during Maidan, and subsequently to Ukraine, I understand some Russians reluctance to see
a similar scenario played out in Russia. That being: am also wary of vISISantism.
FlangeTube
"Pro-democracy" protests? They have democracy. They have an elected leader with a high approval rating. Stop trying twisting
language, these people are not "pro-democracy" they are anti-Putin. That, as much as this paper tries to sell the idea, is not
the same thing.
Drumming up odd-balls to defend the elected government in Russia is all well and good, but I would think the other 75% (the
ones who like Putin, and aren't in biker gangs) should get a say too.
As for the anti-Maidan quotes - of course that was organised. Nuland:, for crying out loud. Kerry and others were there,
Brennan was there. Of course the Western powers were partly involved. And it wasn't peaceful protests, it was violence directed
against elected officials, throwing Molotov cocktails at policemen. It culminated in the burning alive of 40+ people in Odessa.
Sergei Konyushenko
Btw, Shaun is always very best at finding the most important issues to raise?
FallenKezef
It's an interesting point, what happened in the Ukraine was an undemocratic coup which was justified after the fact by an election
once the previous incumbent was safely exiled.
Had that happened to a pro-western government we'd be crying foul. But because it happened to a pro-Russian government it's
ok.
I don't blame Russians for wanting to avoid a repeat in their own country.
Spaceguy1 One
The Crimea referendum "15% for" myth - Human rights investigations. The idea that only 15% of Crimeans voted to join Russia
is speeding around the internet after an article was published in Forbes magazine written by Professor Paul Roderick Gregory.
Professor Gregory has, dishonestly, arrived at his 15% figure by taking the minimum figure for Crimea for both turnout
and for voters for union, calling them the maximum, and then ignoring Sevastopol. He has also pretended the report is based on
the "real results," when it seems to be little more than the imprecise estimates of a small working group who were apparently
against the idea of the referendum in the first place.
It appears that Professor Gregory is intent on deceiving his readers about the vote in Crimea and its legitimacy, probably
as part of the widespread campaign to deny the people of Crimea their legitimate rights to self-determination and to demonize
Russia in the process.
This is not an unexpected result. EU and US governments are going out of way to stir people's opinion in the former Soviet
republics. And they also set the precedent of conducting at least two "revolutions" by street violence in Ukraine and a dozen
- elsewhere. There are obviously people in Russia who believe the changes have to be by discussion and voting not by street disturbance
and stone throwing.
Beckow
Reduced to facts in the article, a group in Russia they will come out and protest in the streets if there are anti-government
demonstrations. Their side also needs to be represented, since the protesters don't represent the majority.
That's all. What is so "undemocratic" about that? Or can only pro-Western people ever demonstrate? In a democracy a biker with
a tattoo is equal to an urbane lawyer with Western connections. That's the way democracies should work.
About funding for Maidan protesters "for which there is no evidence". This is an interesting point. There were students
from Lviv who were given "college credit" for being at Maidan. And how exactly have tens of thousands of mostly young men
lived on streets in Kiev with food and clothes (even some weapons) with no support?
Isn't that a bit of circumstantial evidence that "somebody" supported them. I guess in this case we need to see the invoices,
is that always the case or just when Russia issues are involved?
rezevici
Very sad news from Russia. If Putin or the government doesn't condemn this project of the "patriots", if he and government
doesn't react against announcement of civilian militia's plan to use violence, I'll truly turn to observe Putin as a tsar.
The ethics of Russians will be on display.
Anette Mor -> rezevici
There are specific politicians who rejected participation in normal political process but chosen street riots instead.
The door to politics is open, they can form parties and take part in elections. but then there is a need for a clear political
and economical platform and patience to win over the votes. These people refuse to do so, They just want street riots. Several
years public watch these groups and simply had enough. There is some edgy opposition which attracts minority but they play fair.
Nobody against them protecting and demonstrating even when the call for revolutionary means for getting power, like communists
or national-socialists. But these who got no program other than violent riots as such are not opposition.
They still have an agenda which they cannot openly display. So they attract public by spreading slander and rising tension.
Nothing anti-democratic in forming a group of people who confront these actions. They are just another group taking part in very
complex process.
by Shaun Walker: "Maidan in Kiev did not appear just like that. Everyone was paid, everyone was paid to be there,
was paid for every stone that was thrown, for every bottle thrown,":blin, echoing a frequently repeated Russian claim for which
there is no evidence.
There is evidence, but also recognition from US officials. That at least is not a secret anymore.
Is the US training and funding the Ukraine opposition? Nuland herself claimed in December that the US had spent $5 billion
since the 1990s on "democratization" programs in Ukraine. On what would she like us to believe the money had been spent?
We know that the US State Department invests heavily -- more than $100 million from 2008-2012 alone -- on international
"Internet freedom" activities. This includes heavy State Department funding, for example, to the New Americas Foundation's...
...Commotion Project (sometimes referred to as the "Internet in a Suitcase"). This is an initiative from the New America
Foundation's Open Technology Initiative to build a mobile mesh network that can literally be carried around in a suitcase,
to allow activists to continue to communicate even when a government tries to shut down the Internet, as happened in several
Arab Spring countries during the recent uprisings.
Indeed, Shaun! On what would you like us to believe so much money had been spent?
All of this stems from the stupid EU meddling in Ukraine. We shouldn't get involved in the EUs regime change agenda. Time
to leave the EU.
And also time for us to not get involved in any wars.
daffyddw
Thank you, thank you all, you wonderful putin-bots. I haven't enjoyed a thread so much in ages. Bless you all, little brothers.
susandbs12 -> daffyddw
Putinbot = someone who has a different opinion to you.
Presumably you want a totalitarian state where only your views are legitimate.
Grow up and stop being childish and just accept that there are people who hold different views from you, so what?
LaAsotChayim
Pro democracy protests?? Would that be same protests that Kiev had where Neo-nazis burned unarmed police officers alive, or
the ones in Syria when terrorists (now formed ISIS) where killing Government troops? Are these the pro-democracy protests (all
financed via "US aid" implemented by CIA infiltrators) that the Guardian wants us to care about?
How about the reporting on the indiscriminate slaughter of Eastern Ukrainians by Kiev's government troops and Nazi battalions??
Hey, guardian??!!
Anette Mor -> Strummered
Democracy is overrated. It does not automatically ensure equality for minorities. In Russia with its 100 nationalities and
all world religions simple straight forward majority rule does not bring any good.
A safety net is required. Benevolent dictator is one of the forms for such safety net. Putin fits well as he is fair and gained
trust from all faith, nationalities and social groups. There are other mechanisms in Russia to ensure equality. Many of them came
from USSR including low chamber of Russian parliament called Nationalities chamber. representation there is disproportional to
the number of population but reflecting minorities voice - one sit per nation, no matter how big or small.
The system of different national administrative units for large and small and smallest nationalities depending how much of
autonomic administration each can afford to manage. People in the West should stop preaching democracy. It is nothing but dictatorship
of majority. That is why Middle East lost all its tolerance. Majority rules, minorities are suppressed.
kowalli -> Glenn J. Hill
US has a separate line in the budget to pay for such "democratic" protests
kowalli -> Glenn J. Hill
U.S. Embassy Grants Program. The U.S. Embassy Grants Program announces a competition for Russian non-governmental organizations
to carry out specific projects.
So Russian position was know to US neocons since at least 2012 and still they push forward
"regime change" in Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... Former Member of Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov: Russia Is Ready to Use Military Power to Defend Iran and Syria; Attack on Syria or Iran Is Indirect Attack on Russia. ..."
Former Member of Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov: Russia Is Ready
to Use Military Power to Defend Iran and Syria; Attack on Syria or Iran Is Indirect Attack on
Russia.
Falamu445 10 months ago
And what about China? Should China also seek to protect Iran and Syria with military force
if they are attacked?
hudzz
Pakistan will be with Russia if they go to war with usa or isreal
Benny Morris 1 year ago
Good thing that arrogant America is going down. America has spent nearly 70 years being a
nuisance to Russians. What a bunch of swine they are when they refuse to admit what the whole
world has always known that it was the Soviet Union that won WW2 and America only did so in
its dreams.
optionrider12 2 years ago in reply to Brian Hynes
No, you don't understand and I'm not going to fall for your quasi-Hegelian dialectic.
Communism can be categorized as a utopia and you're kindly advised to find the definition of
Utopia by yourself. Fair enough?
Tristan Xavier 1 year ago in reply to Kati Kati
I understand what you mean but I would never wish the horrors of war on anybody. Peace can
be done in different ways. Both Americans and Russians should focus on the corrupted
governments that they both possess. The previous generations had their time and they chose
either to conform or neglect to the systems. Now we see the results. It's us that needs to
stand up and stop this. Why are we going to war for governments that are currently at war with
it's own people? N.D.A.A,S.O.P.A and drones etc
FTM (Jerry Robinson): Alright, well, joining me on the program today is
Stephen Kinzer. He is an
award-winning foreign correspondent who has worked in more than 50 countries. He has been a
New York Times Bureau Chief in Istanbul, Berlin, and Nicaragua. He's the author of many books,
including the best-selling book
All the Shah's Men: An American
Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.
He's also a professor of international relations at Boston University. My guest today is Stephen
Kinzer. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me on
Follow the Money Weekly Radio.
KINZER (Stephen Kinzer): Great to be with you.
FTM: I am looking at your book right now-at the Preface to the 2008 edition: "The Folly
of Attacking Iran." And I would say, Stephen, that many of the people who are listening to
the program today are…I don't want to assume that they're not familiar with the 1953 event, but I
want to assume that perhaps they don't know as much about it as perhaps maybe they should.
And especially now, as we take a look at the news cycle, we see that Iran is all over the news: talk
about invasion; talk about stopping the nuclear program (whether it's even occurring or not is a
debate). But the issue at hand right now is, "Should we invade Iran for the benefit of our foreign
policy, for the benefit of our security interests?" And you have written a book here that really
peels back the layers about this entire question. Why don't you begin by sharing with our audience
why you wrote this book and why this topic is important to you?
KINZER: In the first place, you're right that that
2008 edition of the book,
which was the new edition, contains this Foreword, "The Folly of Attacking Iran. Now, in the last
couple of years, I've been looking at that new edition and thinking, "Boy, that's kind of out of
date now." That was at the end of the Bush Administration when we were being really hyped up that
Iran was a mortal threat to the rest of the world, but now that introduction is really kind of outdated.
Boy, was I wrong! You're absolutely right that Iran has now emerged as the Number One foreign
policy issue in this presidential campaign, as candidates flail around for foreign policy issues
to beat each other over the head with, Iran really seems to rise to the top of the list. We
are in a situation now where we're looking for a demon in the world. I think this is not just
an American impulse, but in many countries, it's almost thought that if you don't have an enemy in
the world, you should try to find one. It's a way to unite your population and give people
a sense of common purpose.
So, you look around the world and pick some country that you want to turn into your enemy and
inflate into a terrible, mortal threat to your own security. Iran seems to be filling that
role right now. It's an odd situation, because in a sense, the world looks very different from
Iran's point of view than it does from here. Iran has four countries in the immediate neighborhood
that are armed with nuclear weapons. That's India, Pakistan, Russia, and Israel. Iran
also has two countries on its borders that have been invaded and occupied by the United States: that
is, Iraq and Afghanistan. So the idea that Iran might be a little unsure as to its defense
and wants to make sure that it can build whatever it needs to protect itself doesn't seem so strange
when you're sitting in Iran. But even more interesting than all that, when you're looking at
differences between the way the world looks when you see it from the United States and the way it
looks when you see it from Iran has to do with history.
Whenever I travel in the world, particularly when I travel to a country that I'm not familiar
with, I like to ask myself one question: and that is, "How did this country get this way? So, why
is this country rich and powerful?" Or, "Why is this country poor and miserable?" When I was
traveling in Iran and getting to know Iran for the first time, I came to realize that there's a huge
gap between what Iran should be based on its culture and history and size and the education
of its people, and what it is. This is a country that has thousands of years
of history. It was the first empire in history-the Persian Empire. It has produced a huge amount
of culture over many centuries. Its people are highly educated. Nonetheless, it's isolated
from the world; poor; unhappy. And I've always wondered on my first trips there why this was.
What happened? And as I began to read more, and talk to Iranians, people told me, "We used
to have a democracy here. But you Americans came over here and destroyed it. And ever
since then, we've been spiraling down." So I decided, "I gotta find out what really happened.
I need to find a book about what happened to Iranian democracy." And then I looked around and
found there was no such book.
KINZER: I finally decided that if I was going to read that book, I was going to have
to write it myself. And that's how
All the Shah's Men
came about.
FTM: Well, I would imagine that many in the listening audience would immediately
take issue with some of the things that you've stated, and I want to hit those directly head-on.
You state in your book some of the reasons why to attack Iran, at least, some of the reasons that
are stated.
Number One: Iran wants to become a nuclear power, and that should not be allowed. Iran poses
a threat to Israel. Iran sits at the heart of the emerging Shiite Crescent which threatens
to destabilize the Middle East. Iran supports radical groups on nearby countries. Iran
helps kill American soldiers in Iraq. Iran has ordered terror attacks in foreign countries.
Iran's people are oppressed and need Americans to liberate them.
So there's a plethora of ideas as to why American invasion, or some other type of invasion into
Iran would possibly be beneficial, not only to our security interests, but also to Iran's state of
health so to speak, and bringing them liberty. So you made a good case against it. What do
you say to those who say, "You're crazy, Stephen. We need to go over there; we cannot allow
them to have a nuclear weapon.
KINZER: In the first place, we don't have any evidence that Iran is building a nuclear
weapon; in fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency has made clear that it has never seen any
such evidence, and those inspectors are all over those plants, the uranium is under seal, the seals
are under constant video surveillance. It's not as urgent a problem as we're making it out
to be.
Nonetheless, I would add a kind of larger perspective, and it's this. When you look at a
map of the Middle East, one thing jumps right out at you and it is that Iran is the big country right
in the middle. It's not possible to imagine a stable Middle East without including Iran. It's
a little bit comparable to the situation that we faced after the end of World War II when there was
tremendous anger at Germany for very good reasons.
There was a great move afoot (in fact, we actually followed this policy for a few months) to crush
Germany. We were going to slice Germany into pieces, then we were going to forbid it from ever
building another factory or industrial plant again. Fortunately, cooler minds prevailed.
And we decided to take the opposite tactic. And that was to realize that this country, Germany, had
been stirring up trouble in Europe for a hundred years or more, and that the way to prevent that
cycle from continuing was not to isolate Germany and kick it and push it into a corner, but to integrate
Germany into Europe, and to make it a provider of security rather than a consumer of security. That's
what we need to do with Iran. Iran needs to be given a place at the table that's commensurate
with its size, and its tradition, and its history, and its regional role.
Now, the United States doesn't want to do that because when Iran is at that table, it's not going
to be saying things that are pro-American. It has an agenda that's different than ours. So
we don't want it at the table. We want to crush Iran. It sounds like a tempting option,
and in fact, if you could wave a wand and make the regime in Iran go away and make Iran be wonderfully
friendly to the United States, I'd be all for that. But bombing Iran is likely to produce the
opposite result.
First of all, one thing that really surprises me when I'm in Iran is how unbelievably pro-American
the people of Iran are. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that there's no country in the world
where the population is so pro-American as in Iran. I have been stopped on the streets by people
who are practically shrieking when they find out I'm American and tell me how much they love the
United States. You don't even get that in Canada! If we're smart, we're gonna realize
that this is the Middle Eastern country with the most pro-American population. And this pro-American
sentiment in Iran is a huge strategic asset for us going forward. If we liquidate that asset
by bombing Iran, we will be greatly undermining our own strategic power. And this is a pattern
we've been following in that part of the world for a long time.
The war in Iraq greatly eroded American strategic power. It had the opposite effect that
we thought it would have. And this is the real object lesson that we need to keep in mind.
When we intervene in countries, we have enough power to achieve our short-term goal, but then we
go away; our attention goes to other places. And the resentment and the anger festers and burns
in the hearts and minds and souls of people in these countries, and ultimately, we wind up with backlash
that we never anticipated and we can't control. In this rush now in these last months to demonize
Iran and set the groundwork for an attack on Iran, we are doing something that Americans, and maybe
all human beings do too often, and that is: we think about the short term; we never think about the
long-term effects of our interventions.
FTM: You open the book with a quote, a quintessential quote, which is kind of common for
a book, and it's by President Harry Truman: "There is nothing new in the world except the history
you do not know." And I would probably say that most of us are obviously familiar with the
history of September 11th, 2001, and I would go even further and perhaps say that we are
familiar with the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and people may remember those days back in the Carter
years. But your book goes back to 1953.
In the Preface of your book, you state that the 1953 intervention by the United States into Iran
may be seen as a decisive turning point in the 20th Century history from our perspective
today. Now I don't know how many people in our listening audience know what happened in 1953.
What event are you referring to, and why is it important to what's happening today?
KINZER: For most Americans, the history of U.S.-Iran relations begins and ends with
the Hostage Crisis. That's all we know, and we know that everything went bad since then.
But Iranians don't think that way. For them, the Hostage Crisis is just one of a number of
incidents that have happened over the past 50 years. For them, the key moment in the history
of U.S.-Iran relations came in 1953. This is an episode that completely defines Iranian history
and the Iran-United States relationship. Yet, many people in the United States are not even aware
this happened.
Very briefly, this is the story (and I tell it in much more detail in my book): In the period
after World War II, Iranian democracy, which had come about at the beginning of the 20th
Century through a revolution against a corrupt monarchy, really began to take form. It took on a
reality. You had elections; competing parties; parliament. This was something that had
not been seen in any Muslim country. So, Iran was truly in the vanguard of democracy.
But, because Iran was a democracy, it elected a leader who represented the public will-not the will
of outside powers. In Iran, there was one obsession. Iran is sitting, as we know, on an ocean
of oil. But all through the 1920's and '30's and '40's, that oil was completely controlled
by one British company.
The entire standard of living in Britain all during that period was based on oil from Iran, since
Britain has no oil or any colonies that have any oil. Meanwhile, people in Iran were living
in some of the most miserable conditions of anyone in the world. Once they had a democracy,
they elected a leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who, as prime minister, proceeded to pass a bill in congress
in which Iran nationalized its oil industry. This sent the British into a panic. They
tried all kinds of things to crush Mosaddegh. Finally, when he closed their embassy and chased
out all their diplomats, including all the secret agents who were trying to overthrow him, the British
decided, "We're going to ask the Americans to do this for us." So, Churchill asked President
Truman to "do this for us. Please go over to Iran and overthrow this guy who took away our
oil company. And Truman said, "No." But then, a few years later, when Dwight Eisenhower
became president, and John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State, and his brother, Allen Dulles,
became Director of the CIA, things changed.
The United States decided that we would work with the British to overthrow Mosaddegh -mainly because
he was challenging the fundamentals of corporate globablism, the principle that international companies
should be allowed to function all over the world according to conditions that they considered fair.
Mosaddegh was saying, "No, we are going to determine the conditions under which foreign companies
can function in our country." As a result, the United States sent a team CIA agents into Iran.
They went to work in the basement of the American Embassy. They threw Iran into total chaos,
and that chaos finally resulted in the overthrow of the Mosaddegh government. That put the
Shah back on his peacock throne; he ruled with increasing oppression for 25 years; his repressive
rule produced the explosion of the late 1970's, what we call "The Islamic Revolution"; that brought
the power, this clique of fanatically anti-American mullahs who are in power now. So, when you do
what they call in the CIA "walking back the cat," when you walk back the cat, that is, to see what
happened before, and before, and before, you come to realize that the American role in crushing Iranian
democracy in 1953 was not only the defining event in the history of U.S.-Iran relations, but it set
Iran in the Middle East into turmoil from which it has never recovered.
FTM: In 1953, in the book you point out that democracy was beginning to take root
there.
KINZER: It's a remarkable story. This, as I said, is something that had never happened
in a Muslim country before. Iran is a remarkable country; very different from the other countries
in the Middle East. And I'm not sure that people in the United States realize this. Most
of the countries in the Middle East are what you might call "fake countries." They're made-up
countries that were invented by some British or French diplomat drawing lines on a map at some men's
club after World War I.
Iran is not a fake country by any means. It has lived for thousands of years within more
or less the same boundaries, with more or less the same language, and the same kind of population.
It's a country with a deep, rich culture and very strong sense of itself. We are treating Iran
as if it's Honduras or Barundi or some little place where we can just go and kick sand in people's
face and they'll do whatever we want. Iran is not a country like that. And, given its
size, and its location, you see that that region will never be stable as long as Iran is angry and
ostracized. The only way to stabilize that part of the world is to build a security architecture
in which Iran has a place.
The world needs a big security concession from Iran. The world also needs big security concessions
from Israel. But countries only make security concessions when they feel safe. Therefore,
it should be in interest of those who want stability in the Middle East to try to help every country
in the region feel safe. But our goal in the Middle East isn't really stability; it's "stability
under our rule…under our dominance." And we realize that when Iran emerges as a strong, proud,
independent, democratic country, it's not gonna be so friendly to the United States. So I think there
is some feeling that "we prefer it this way" being poor and isolated and unhappy.
FTM: I was looking at a map the other day of the Middle East, just noticing the U.S. military
bases in the Middle East, and Iran, if you look at it very objectively, and take a look at the Middle
East military base map, you'll discover that Iran is completely surrounded. And as you mentioned,
there are four other nations in their general vicinity that have nuclear weapons, and it seems as
if pretty much the only way to keep the United States away from your country if you aren't playing
by their rules is to have a nuclear weapon. So logically, it does seem to make sense that the
Iranians are perhaps seeking a nuclear weapon, but what you point out here again in your book is
that the program, to have a nuclear program, was first proposed by the United States to Iran back
in the 1970's.
KINZER: We thought it was a great idea for Iran to have a nuclear program-when it was run
by a regime that was responsive to Washington. Now that it's a different kind of regime, we
don't like this idea. You're absolutely right about the lessons that Iran has drawn about the
value of having a nuclear weapon, or the ability to make a nuclear weapon, based on what's happened
in the world.
Why did the United States attack Iraq, but not attack North Korea? I think it's quite obvious:
if North Korea didn't have a nuclear weapon, we would have crushed them already; and if Sadaam
did have a nuclear weapon, we probably never would have invaded that country.
An even more vivid example is
Libya.
We managed to persuade
Gaddafi
to give up his nuclear program; as soon as he did that, we came in and killed him. I think
that the Iranians are acutely aware of this. They would like, if I'm gonna guess, to have the
ability to put together a nuclear deterrent, a nuclear weapon-something like Japan has. Japan
has something that is in the nuclear business called a "screwdriver weapon." They're not allowed
to have nuclear weapons, but they have the pieces and the parts around, so that in a matter of weeks,
they could probably put one together. Now, we hear a lot about how the Israelis are terrified
that as soon as Iran gets a nuclear weapon, it's gonna bomb Israel. But, in fact, as people
in the Israeli security establishment have made clear, none of them really believe that. They
fear the Iranian nuclear weapon for a couple of other reasons.
One is, that as Israel well-knows, when you have a nuclear weapon, you don't need to use it. It
gives you a certain power; a certain authority. You can intimidate people around you. And second,
of course, if there's another nuclear power in that region, it's going to set off perhaps another
nuclear race, and other countries like Turkey or Saudi Arabia or Egypt would want to have nuclear
weapons, too. But when the Iranians look around, I think the first country they see (and I've
heard this from a number of Iranians) is Pakistan. Pakistan is a far more volatile and far
more dangerous country than Iran. We have serious Taliban/al-Qaeda types not only running around
in Pakistan, but doing so under the egious of the government and they have a prospective to take
over that government! This is not going to happen in Iran. Pakistan is far more volatile,
yet the United States thought that is was fine that Pakistan should have a nuclear weapon. I'm against
all countries having nuclear weapons.
I'd like to see all countries that have them abandon them, and I don't want any more countries
to get them. But that's a dream world. The fact is, the most that we can do by attacking
Iran (as our own Defense Secretary has said) is to postpone the day when Iran has a nuclear weapon,
and in the process, make them a lot angrier. The way to reduce this danger is to build a security
system in the Middle East where people don't feel the need to be threatening each other. But
that requires dialogue, and dialogue requires compromise, and the United States is not ready to compromise
with Iran.
FTM: Interesting. And that's where I want to take this in conclusion: What
does that look like? Because obviously, the goal of your book here is to see some sort of peace
reached. I mean, no one wants to see war. But the Middle East obviously is just an issue
that has been debated for a long time. There are all kinds of
geopolitical reasons for being involved in the Middle East-namely, oil. But predominantly, as
we look at all of this, the question really boils down to this: What are we going to do? If
we don't bomb Iran, then how do we prevent them from potentially becoming an explosive nation in
that region? You say "security system" over there and also "dialogue." If you were President,
what would you do? How do you start that process?
KINZER: The first place, we have never really tried serious diplomatic overtures
to Iran. We've got some of our most senior retired diplomats in the United States now who are
chafing at the bit to be sent to Iran. People like Thomas Pickering, who was George Bush's
ambassador to the United Nations and ambassador to Moscow, and William Lords, another titan of 20th
Century diplomacy. These are people who are itching to go to Iran and see what they can do.
We have not even asked Iran the fundamental question, "What would it take from us for you to do what
we would like you to do with your nuclear program?"
Forget about deciding whether we want to do it or not; we don't even know what the quid pro quo
would be! So, we need first to get into a mindset where we're willing to have a real dialogue
on an equal basis with Iran. We are not at that point. We feel that any dialogue with
them is only going to legitimize their position in the Middle East and is going to make them feel
that they're a powerful country, because we will be making concessions to them-that's what you do
when you have negotiated solutions. But the fact is, Iran already is a powerful country. It
doesn't need us to legitimize it. We need to understand that in dealing with Iran, we're not
going to get everything we want. And we are going to have to concede Iran a measure of power
in that region that's commensurate with its size, and its history, and its location. We're
not even at that point yet. I think that's the first step. We have to make a psychological
transition to realize that we're not going to be able to dictate to Iran if we want to reach a peaceful
settlement. We're going to have to compromise. We're going to have to accept some things
that Iran wants in order to get things that we want. Before we even get to the point of figuring
out what those would be, we need to get over that psychological, political, diplomatic hurdle. And
we haven't done that yet.
FTM: My guest today has been Stephen Kinzer. He's the author of the book
All the Shah's Men.
Very enlightening stuff; very illuminating. Stephen, if the folks would like to learn more
about you and your work, how can they do so?
KINZER: I've got a website: stephenkinzer.com.
My books are all available on that mass website that I don't want to advertise that it's named after
a giant river in South America.
FTM: (laughter)
KINZER: But if you want to support your local independent bookstore, I'm sure it
would be happy to order All the Shah's Men for you or any of my other books.
FTM: Very good, Stephen. Thank you so much for coming on our program today, Stephen.
"... Ukraine has given Russia a deadline of October 29 to accept the restructuring offer made to
private sector investors; assuming it continues to refuse, Russia is threatening legal action if
it is not repaid in full on December 20. So all of this is really coming to a head. It will all end
up in the British courts - perhaps offering London it's own pari passu-type saga - unless something
like the Lerrick compromise is adopted. ..."
"... Funny , but I have read the notorious IEA energy overview of Ukraine published a few years
ago. It promised to add value (collapse the economy) by adding costs..........funny enough but
it has. Not a fan of People the Great style centralized capitalism but the objectives of finance
capitalism are far from pretty either. ..."
"... Im still not sure how a country can do a deal over bond restructuring with a country that
it is at war with when the war is partly causing the need for bond restructuring. ..."
"... This loan assumed that there wouldnt be a coup and that Ukraine would pay its way under Russian
subsidies as it had done in the past. Then the Western encouraged coup, and the collapse. And
then an IMF loan of a lot more. Go figure... A fine lesson in how instability destroys an economy.
I wish the West would not encourage this. Its here they should have to pay. They managed not to
do so, so far in Libya. They are paying in Iraq, but in arms not in development which the Iraqis
deserve. I wish the West would support stability - things in the world change slowly if it is
to be for the benefit of all... ..."
Martin Wolf was fuming about Russia on Wednesday - incensed specifically about its stance towards
Ukraine's attempted debt restructuring. He really doesn't like the fact that Russia's refusal to
join August's $18bn deal with private bond holders will block Ukraine's access to IMF money, promising
to collapse the country's economy.
Along the way, Wolf notes that there's a solution on the table here, albeit one that Russia is
unlikely to accept. It comes from Adam Lerrick of the American Enterprise Institute - a man with
some form in coming up with elegant solutions amid sovereign debt crises. (See Iceland, Greece and
also Argentina.)
Here's Lerrick's detail on Ukraine, along with a table for Putin and pals…
Ukraine has given Russia a deadline of October 29 to accept the restructuring offer made to
private sector investors; assuming it continues to refuse, Russia is threatening legal action if
it is not repaid in full on December 20. So all of this is really coming to a head. It will all end
up in the British courts - perhaps offering London it's own pari passu-type saga - unless something
like the Lerrick compromise is adopted.
The American academic's approach actually accepts a core Russian claim - that the concessional
terms of Russia's original loan put it on a different footing from private creditors in that Ukraine
signed up to pay a coupon of 5 per cent, at a time when regular bond market investors would have
demanded 12 per cent or more. But Lerrick then suggests that Russia be compensated for this concession
(in the form of higher interest rates on newly issued replacement bonds), before then accepting the
private creditor restructuring terms.
You can read the two options in full below. They look fair to all involved, which probably means
there's no chance of Russia accepting the idea at all!
The Dork of Cork.
Funny , but I have read the notorious IEA energy overview of Ukraine published a few years
ago. It promised to "add value" (collapse the economy) by adding costs..........funny enough but
it has. Not a fan of People the Great style centralized capitalism but the objectives of finance
capitalism are far from pretty either.
Upaswellasdown
What exactly will Russia do if it is not repaid? invade?
Pseudonym
I'm still not sure how a country can do a deal over bond restructuring with a country that
it is at war with when the war is partly causing the need for bond restructuring.
ukrainewatcher
Really angers me, as this was political loan to finance last dying days of Yanukovich's regime.
Probably used to pay towards the violence of the following months and to the cash that was taken
out of the country in trucks. Russia consequently cost Ukraine's economy billions of dollars,
through invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine against very explicit guarantees provided by most
superpowers (including US, Russia and UK) provided in return for dismantling world's third largest
nuclear arsenal. Obligations that are in my books pretty much worthless, yet Ukraine continues
to fulfil today (still destroying long term missiles as we speak)
And Ukraine still needs to deal with them as though they are normal creditors?
Something very wrong with the world of you ask me.
violet17
It was a political loan...correct! And it is a sovereign loan. And that is what the fuss is about!!
This loan assumed that there wouldn't be a coup and that Ukraine would pay its way under Russian
subsidies as it had done in the past. Then the Western encouraged coup, and the collapse. And
then an IMF loan of a lot more. Go figure... A fine lesson in how instability destroys an economy.
I wish the West would not encourage this. Its here they should have to pay. They managed not to
do so, so far in Libya. They are paying in Iraq, but in arms not in development which the Iraqis
deserve. I wish the West would support stability - things in the world change slowly if it is
to be for the benefit of all...
FearTheTree
@ukrainewatcher Isn't the same true of Argentina. How much of its 80B in contested debt was used
to support Menem and his cronies, thinking that the dollar-peso peg would hold indefinitely?
"... A 2007 draft position paper on the role of the intelligence community in the wake of the 9/11
attacks shows that Brennan was already aware that numerous federal agencies – the FBI, CIA, NSA,
Defense Department and Homeland Security – "are all engaged in intelligence activities on
US soil." He said these activities "must be consistent with our laws and reflect the
democratic principles and values of our Nation." ..."
"... Brennan added that the president and Congress need "clear mandates" and "firm
criteria" to determine what limits need to be placed on domestic intelligence operations.
When it comes to situations beyond US borders, Brennan said sometimes action must be taken
overseas "to address real and emerging threats to our interests," and that they may need
to be done "under the cover of secrecy." He argued that many covert CIA actions have
resulted in "major contributions" to US policy goals. ..."
"... "enhanced interrogation" ..."
"... Some of the techniques Bond suggested that Congress ban included: forcing the detainee to
be naked; forcing them to perform sexual acts; waterboarding; inducing hypothermia; conducting
mock executions; and depriving detainees of food, water, or medical care. ..."
"... "Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2008." ..."
"... The bill prohibited the use of many of the same techniques listed in the previous document,
though it was not passed. Ultimately, President Obama issued an executive order banning officials
from using techniques not in the Army Field Manual. ..."
US government 'engaged' in spying activities on US soil
A 2007 draft position paper on the role of the intelligence community in the wake of the 9/11
attacks shows that Brennan was already aware that numerous federal agencies – the FBI, CIA, NSA,
Defense Department and Homeland Security – "are all engaged in intelligence activities on
US soil." He said these activities "must be consistent with our laws and reflect the
democratic principles and values of our Nation."
Brennan added that the president and Congress need "clear mandates" and "firm
criteria" to determine what limits need to be placed on domestic intelligence operations.
When it comes to situations beyond US borders, Brennan said sometimes action must be taken
overseas "to address real and emerging threats to our interests," and that they may need
to be done "under the cover of secrecy." He argued that many covert CIA actions have
resulted in "major contributions" to US policy goals.
Debate over torture restrictions
WikiLeaks published two documents related to the CIA's use of so-called "enhanced interrogation"
techniques, though notably neither was written by Brennan.
One was written by then-Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri), vice chairman on the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, which outlined a proposal to limit the CIA's torture techniques without
restricting the development of new techniques complying with the law.
The document suggests listing the types of techniques that the CIA is barred from using instead
of restricting the agency to only those explicitly listed in the Army Field Manual.
Some of the techniques Bond suggested that Congress ban included: forcing the detainee to
be naked; forcing them to perform sexual acts; waterboarding; inducing hypothermia; conducting
mock executions; and depriving detainees of food, water, or medical care.
Bond's suggestions get a bill
The final document appears to show Bond's suggestions making their way into a legislative
proposal titled "Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2008."
The bill prohibited the use of many of the same techniques listed in the previous document,
though it was not passed. Ultimately, President Obama issued an executive order banning officials
from using techniques not in the Army Field Manual.
"... With a properly run service provider, neither the helpdesk drones nor the admin staff
should be able to see any user's password, which should be safely stored in an encrypted form. ..."
"... This is a turf war between bureaucrats who are born incompetent. The NSA has been increasing
its share of budgetary largesse while the CIA and other security units have each been fighting
to keep up. Politicians, being bureaucrats themselves, engage in the turf war. To them its all
great fun. ..."
"... Lets be clear: it is very hard to see how blanket surveillance of American citizens is beneficial
to American citizens. It tips over the power balance between government and citizen - it is undemocratic.
It is unAmerican. ..."
"... It would be funny if it wasnt for the fact that the kid will most likely regret this for
the rest of his life and nothing will change for Government or Brennan. ..."
"... Ive said it before and Ill say it again: incompetence is the main bulwark against tyranny.
So let us be grateful for John Brennan. ..."
With a properly run service provider, neither the helpdesk drones nor the admin staff
should be able to see any user's password, which should be safely stored in an encrypted form.
AmyInNH -> NigelSafeton 21 Oct 2015 11:59
You seriously underestimate the technical incompetence of the federal government. They buy
on basis of quantity of big blue arrows, shown on marketing slideware.
Laudig 21 Oct 2015 05:31
This is great. This man is a serial perjurer to Congress. Which does eff-all about being lied
to [they lie to everyone and so don't take offense at being lied to] and now he's hacked by a
13 year-old who, until a few weeks ago was protected by the The Children's Online Privacy Protection
Act of 1998.
Well done, CIA or whatever you are.
So your well constructed career gets collapsed by someone who is still in short pants. The
Age of Secrets is over now.
Stieve 21 Oct 2015 02:54
Er, why has no-one mentioned, why has there been no press coverage, why has not a single presidential
candidate been asked to comment on the fact that The USA has been the victim of a military coup?
All pretence of government oversight has been dropped. The NSA, CIA and most likely every other
arm of the "intelligence service" have simply taken over the elected government, ripped up The
Constitution and transformed The US into a police state. Seven thousand people disappeared in
Chigaco? Exactly why have there not been massive arrests of these Stasi? Or riots on the streets?
Exactly why has there not been an emergency session of The Senate or Congress to find out why
Chicago is being run like an Eastern Bloc dictatorship? Exactly why are police departments been
given military hardware designed to be used by an occupying army?
I'll tell you exactly why.
Because The US actually has been taken over
Glenn J. Hill 21 Oct 2015 01:28
LOL, the Head of the CIA put sensitive info on an personal AOL ACCOUNT !!!!! What an total
idiot. Just proves the " Peter Principle", that one gets promoted to one`s point of incompetent!
Can he be fired ? Locked up for gross stupidity ?? Will he come hunting for me, to take me out
for pointing out his asinine stupidity ??
Fnert Pleeble -> Robert Lewis 20 Oct 2015 23:42
Congressmen are self motivating. They want the gravy train to continue. The carrot is plenty
big, no need for the stick.
Buckworm 20 Oct 2015 21:51
Those old, tired, incompetent, ignorant, trolls are asking for more and more access to citizens
data based on the assumption that they can catch a terrorist or another type of psycho before
they act out on something. Don't they realize that so far, after 15 years of violating the citizen's
constitutional rights, they HAVE NEVER CAUGHT not even ONE single person under their illegal surveillance.
This is the problem: they think that terrorists are as stupid as they are, and that they will
be sending tons of un-encrypted information online- and that sooner or later they will intercept
that data and prevent a crime. How many times have they done so? Z E RO . They haven't realized
that terrorists and hackers are waaaaayyy ahead of them and their ways of communicating are already
beyond the old-fashioned government-hacked internet. I mean, only a terrorist as stupid as a government
employee would think of ever sending something sensitive through electronic communications of
any kind - but the government trolls still believe that they do or that sooner or later they will!!
How super-beyond-stupid is that? Congress??
Don't even talk about that putrid grotesque political farce - completely manipulated by the
super-rich and heated up by the typical white-trash delusional trailer park troll aka as the "tea
party". We've had many killing in the homeland after 9/11 - not even one of them stopped by the
"mega-surveillance" - and thousands committed by irresponsible and crooked cops - and this will
continue until America Unites and fight for their constitutional rights. That will happen as soon
as their priority is not getting the latest iPhone with minimal improvement, spends endless hours
playing candy crush,stand in long lines to buy pot, get drunk every evening and weekends, and
cancel their subscription to home-delivered heroin and cocaine. So don't hold your breath on that
one.
Wait until one of those 13-yr old gets a hold of nuclear codes, electric grid codes, water
supply or other important service code - the old government farts will scream and denounce that
they could have prevented that if they had had more surveillance tools - but that is as false
as the $3 dollar bills they claim to have in their wallets. They cannot see any further from their
incompetence and ignorance.
Robert Lewis -> Giants1925 20 Oct 2015 18:38
Did the FSB cook data so the US would invade Iraq and kill 1,000,000 civilians?
yusowong 20 Oct 2015 18:20
This is a turf war between bureaucrats who are born incompetent. The NSA has been increasing
its share of budgetary largesse while the CIA and other security units have each been fighting
to keep up. Politicians, being bureaucrats themselves, engage in the turf war. To them it's all
great fun.
Triumphant -> George Giants1925 20 Oct 2015 14:41
Are you saying that because you aren't in a concentration camp, everything's pretty good? That's
a pretty low bar to set.
Most people probably didn't vote for your current leader. To compare, in the UK, only 37% of the
popular vote went for the current government. And once you leader is voted in, they pretty much
do as they please. Fortunately, there are checks and balances which are supposed to prevent things
getting out of control. Unfortunately, bills like the cybersecurity bill are intend to circumvent
these things.
Let's be clear: it is very hard to see how blanket surveillance of American citizens is beneficial
to American citizens. It tips over the power balance between government and citizen - it is undemocratic.
It is unAmerican.
Red Ryder -> daniel1948 20 Oct 2015 14:16
The whole freakin government is totally incompetent when it comes to computers and the hacking
going on around this planet. Hillary needs to answer for this email scandal but currently she
is making jokes about it as if nothing happened. She has no clue when she tried to delete her
emails. Doesn't the government know that this stuff is backed up on many computers and then stored
it a tape vault somewhere. Hiding emails is a joke today.
mancfrank 20 Oct 2015 13:27
It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that the kid will most likely regret this for
the rest of his life and nothing will change for Government or Brennan.
Giants1925 20 Oct 2015 12:53
I still don't understand why Russia is allowed to have the FSB but the US is forbidden from
having the CIA Who makes these rules again? Because frankly I'm tired of the world being run
by popular opinion.
bcarey 20 Oct 2015 12:33
The bill is so bad that the major tech companies like Google and Amazon all came out
against it last week, despite the fact that it would give them broad immunity for sharing
this information with the government.
The usual show... "We're totally against it, but it's okay."
Donald Mintz 20 Oct 2015 12:02
I've said it before and I'll say it again: incompetence is the main bulwark against tyranny.
So let us be grateful for John Brennan.
The report, even in its highly-politized form, gives the families of the victims the right
to file lawsuits against Ukraine for its criminal negligence in complying with flight safety
rules. These suits can cost Ukraine billions of dollars.
idance 14 Oct 2015 12:51
Partly repeating my comment to another article here I must admit this POV agrees with
today's (but not yesterday's) US standards.
The US has just refused to accept the UNSC statement condemning the shelling of the Russian
Embassy in Damascus. They said the responsibility for the security of diplomatic missions lies
on the receiving party, that is on Damascus.
Applying this standard it doesn't matter who shot down MH17. The responsibility lies on
Ukraine cause it was Ukraine who should have ensured security of the flight.
Yeah! How do you like it!
SHappens 14 Oct 2015 03:31
"Russia's got a role and they haven't been very helpful," he said. "So I blame Russia
partially but not completely. There are many other players that are also to blame."
Some people see through. Rightly, as highlighted by the report, Ukraine failed to its
obligations, by not closing its airspace, rerouting a flight which casually got shot. They
bear the main responsibility in this disaster.
DeConstruct -> Putzik 13 Oct 2015 23:05
You are 100% on the money in relation to shorter route length and air navigation fees. The
penny should have dropped when it became obvious from the altitudes of previous military shoot
downs that medium range (up to 70,000' +) weapons were being employed and not just low
altitude MANPADS.
summaluvva -> Putzik 13 Oct 2015 22:35
Quoting Guardian's article, "Many of the world's best-known airlines – including British
Airways, Qantas and Cathay Pacific – had been avoiding Ukrainian airspace due to safety fears
for months before the downing of flight MH17.".
"... But bankers are inherently
inclined toward statism. ..."
"... , engaged as they are in unsound fractional reserve
credit, are, in the free market, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence they are
always reaching for government aid and bailout. ..."
"... Both sets of bankers, then,
tend to be tied in with government policy, and try to influence and control government actions
in domestic and foreign affairs. ..."
"... Wall Street, Banks,
and American Foreign Policy ..."
"... The great turning point of American foreign policy came in the early 1890s, during the
second Cleveland Administration. It was then that the U.S. turned sharply and permanently from
a foreign policy of peace and non-intervention to an aggressive program of economic and political
expansion abroad. At the heart of the new policy were America's leading bankers, eager to use
the country's growing economic strength to subsidize and force-feed export markets and investment
outlets that they would finance, as well as to guarantee Third World government bonds. The major
focus of aggressive expansion in the 1890s was Latin America, and the principal Enemy to be
dislodged was Great Britain, which had dominated foreign investments in that vast region. ..."
"... In a notable series of articles in 1894, ..."
"... set the agenda for
the remainder of the decade. Its conclusion: if 'we could wrest the South American markets from
Germany and England and permanently hold them, this would be indeed a conquest worth perhaps
a heavy sacrifice.' ..."
"... Long-time Morgan associate Richard Olney heeded the call, as Secretary of State from
1895 to 1897, setting the U.S. on the road to Empire. After leaving the State Department, he
publicly summarized the policy he had pursued. The old isolationism heralded by George Washington's
Farewell Address is over, he thundered. The time has now arrived, Olney declared, when 'it behooves
us to accept the commanding position… among the Power of the earth.' And, 'the present crying
need of our commercial interests,' he added, 'is more markets and larger markets' for American
products, especially in Latin America.' ..."
How did this happen? There are two versions of this little immorality tale, one coming from the
"left" and the other from the "right" (the scare-quotes are there for a reason, which I'll get to
in a moment or two).
The "left" version goes something like this:
The evil capitalists, in league with their bought-and-paid for cronies in government, destroyed
and looted the economy until there was nothing left to steal. Then, when their grasping hands
had reached the very bottom of the treasure chest, they dialed 911 and the emergency team (otherwise
known as the US Congress) came to their rescue, doling out trillions to the looters and leaving
the rest of America to pay the bill.
The "right" version goes something like the following:
Politically connected Wall Streeters, in league with their bought-and-paid-for cronies in
government, destroyed and looted the economy until there was nothing left to steal. Then, when
their grasping hands had reached the very bottom of the treasure chest, they dialed BIG-GOV-HELP
and the feds showed up with the cash.
The first thing one notices about these two analyses, taken side by side, is their similarity:
yes, the "left" blames the free market, and the "right" blames Big Government, but when you get
past the blame game their descriptions of what actually happened look like veritable twins.
And as much as I agree with the "right" about their proposed solution – a
radical cut
in government spending – it is the "left" that has the most accurate analysis of who's to blame.
It is, of course, the big banks – the recipients of bailout loot, the ones who profited (and
continue to profit) from the economic catastrophe that has befallen us.
During the 1930s, the so-called Red Decade, no leftist agitprop was complete without a cartoon
rendering of the top-hatted capitalist with his foot planted firmly on the throat of the proletariat
(usually depicted as a muscular-but-passive male in chains). That imagery, while crude, is largely
correct – an astonishing statement, I know, coming from an avowed
libertarian and "reactionary,"
no less. Yet my leftist pals, and others with a superficial knowledge of libertarianism, will be
even more surprised that
the founder of the modern libertarian movement, also an avowed (and proud) "reactionary," agreed
with me (or, rather,
I with him):
"Businessmen or manufacturers can either be genuine free enterprisers or statists;
they can either make their way on the free market or seek special government favors and privileges.
They choose according to their individual preferences and values. But bankers are inherently
inclined toward statism.
"Commercial bankers, engaged as they are in unsound fractional reserve
credit, are, in the free market, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence they are
always reaching for government aid and bailout.
"Investment bankersdo much of their business underwriting government
bonds, in the United States and abroad. Therefore, they have a vested interest in promoting
deficits and in forcing taxpayers to redeem government debt.Both sets of bankers, then,
tend to be tied in with government policy, and try to influence and control government actions
in domestic and foreign affairs."
That's Murray N. Rothbard, the great libertarian theorist and economist, in his classic monograph
Wall Street, Banks,
and American Foreign Policy. If you want a lesson in the real motivations behind our foreign
policy of global intervention, starting at the very dawn of the American empire, you have only to
read this fascinating treatise. The essence of it is this: the very
rich have stayed very rich in what would otherwise be a dynamic and ever-changing economic free-for-all
by securing government favors, enjoying state-granted monopolies, and using the US military as their
private security guards. Conservatives who read Rothbard's short book will never
look at the Panama Canal issue in the same light again. Lefties will come away from it marveling
at how closely the libertarian Rothbard comes to echoing the old
Marxist aphorism
that the government is the "executive committee of the capitalist class."
Rothbard's account of the course of American foreign policy as the history of contention between
the Morgan interests,
the Rockefellers, and the various banking "families," who dealt primarily in buying and selling
government bonds, is fascinating stuff, and it illuminates a theme common to both left and right
commentators: that the elites are manipulating the policy levers to ensure their own economic interests
unto eternity.
In normal times, political movements are centered around elaborate ideologies, complex narratives
that purport to explain what is wrong and how to fix it. They have their heroes, and their villains,
their creation myths and their dystopian visions of a dark future in store if we don't heed their
call to revolution (or restoration, depending on whether they're hailing from the "left" or the
"right").
You may have noticed, however, that these are not normal times: we're in a crisis of epic proportions,
not only an economic crisis but also a cultural meltdown in which our
social institutions
are
collapsing,
and with them longstanding social norms. In such times, ideological categories tend to break down,
and we've seen this especially in the foreign policy realm, where both the "extreme" right and the
"extreme" left are
calling for what the elites deride as "isolationism."
On the domestic front, too, the "right" and "left" views of what's wrong with the country are remarkably
alike, as demonstrated above. Conservatives and lefties may have different
solutions, but they have, I would argue, a common enemy: the banksters.
This characterization of the banking industry as the moral equivalent of gangsters has its
proponents on both sides of the political spectrum, and today that ideological convergence is
all but complete, with only "centrists" and self-described pragmatists dissenting. What rightists
and leftists have in common, in short, is a very powerful enemy – and that's all a mass political
movement needs to get going.
In normal times, this wouldn't be enough: but, as I said above, these most assuredly aren't normal
times. The crisis lends urgency to a process that has been developing – unfolding, if you will –
for quite some time, and that is the evolution of a political movement that openly disdains the
"left" and "right" labels, and homes in on the main danger to liberty and peace on earth: the state-privileged
banking system that is now foreclosing on America.
This issue is not an abstraction: we see it being played out on the battlefield of the debt ceiling
debate. Because, after all, who will lose and who will win if the debt ceiling isn't raised? The
losers will be the bankers who buy and sell government bonds, i.e. those who finance the War Machine
that is today devastating
much of the world. My leftie friends might protest that these bonds also finance Social Security
payments, and I would answer that they need to grow a spine: President Obama's
threat that Social Security checks may not go out after the August deadline is, like everything
out that comes out of his mouth,
a lie. The government has the money to pay on those checks: this is just his way of playing
havoc with the lives of American citizens, a less violent but nonetheless just as evil version of
the havoc he plays with the lives of
Afghans,
Pakistanis, and
Libyans every day.
This isn't about Social Security checks: it's about an attempt to reinflate the bubble of American
empire, which has been sagging
of late, and keep the government printing presses rolling. For the US government, unlike a private
entity, can print its way out of debt – or, these days, by simply
adding
a few zeroes to the figures on a computer screen. A central bank, owned by "private" individuals,
controls this process: it is called the Federal Reserve. And the Fed has been the instrument of
the banksters from its very inception
[.pdf], at the turn of the 19th century – not coincidentally, roughly the time America embarked
on its course of overseas empire.
There is a price to be paid, however, for this orgy of money-printing: the degradation, or cheapening,
of the dollar. Most of us suffer on account of this policy: the only beneficiaries are those who
receive those dollars first, before it trickles down to the rest of us. The very first to receive
them are, of course, the bankers, but there's another class of business types who benefit, and those
are the exporters, whose products are suddenly competitive with cheaper foreign goods. This has
been a major driving force behind US foreign policy, as Rothbard points out:
"The great turning point of American foreign policy came in the early 1890s, during the
second Cleveland Administration. It was then that the U.S. turned sharply and permanently from
a foreign policy of peace and non-intervention to an aggressive program of economic and political
expansion abroad. At the heart of the new policy were America's leading bankers, eager to use
the country's growing economic strength to subsidize and force-feed export markets and investment
outlets that they would finance, as well as to guarantee Third World government bonds. The major
focus of aggressive expansion in the 1890s was Latin America, and the principal Enemy to be
dislodged was Great Britain, which had dominated foreign investments in that vast region.
"In a notable series of articles in 1894, Bankers' Magazine set the agenda for
the remainder of the decade. Its conclusion: if 'we could wrest the South American markets from
Germany and England and permanently hold them, this would be indeed a conquest worth perhaps
a heavy sacrifice.'
"Long-time Morgan associate Richard Olney heeded the call, as Secretary of State from
1895 to 1897, setting the U.S. on the road to Empire. After leaving the State Department, he
publicly summarized the policy he had pursued. The old isolationism heralded by George Washington's
Farewell Address is over, he thundered. The time has now arrived, Olney declared, when 'it behooves
us to accept the commanding position… among the Power of the earth.' And, 'the present crying
need of our commercial interests,' he added, 'is more markets and larger markets' for American
products, especially in Latin America.'"
The face of the Enemy has long since changed, and Britain is our partner in a vast mercantilist
enterprise, but the mechanics and motivation behind US foreign policy remain very much the same.
You'll note that the Libyan "rebels," for example, set up a Central Bank
right off the bat, even before ensuring their military victory over Gadhafi – and who do you
think is going to be selling (and buying) those Libyan "government" bonds? It sure as heck won't
be Joe Sixpack: it's the same Wall Streeters who issued an ultimatum to the Tea Party, via Moody's,
that they'll either vote to raise the debt ceiling or face the consequences.
But what are those consequences – and who will feel their impact the most?
It's the bankers who will take the biggest hit if US bonds are downgraded: the investment bankers,
who invested in such a dodgy enterprise as the US government, whose "full faith and credit" isn't
worth the paper it's printed on. In a free market, these losers would pay the full price of their
bad business decisions – in our crony-capitalist system, however, they win.
They win because they have the US government behind them - and because their strategy of degrading
the dollar will reap mega-profits from American exporters, whose overseas operations they are funding.
The "China market," and the rest of the vast undeveloped stretches of the earth that have yet to
develop a taste for iPads and Lady Gaga, all this and more will be open to them as long as the dollar
continues to fall.
That this will cripple the buying power of the average American, and raise the specter of
hyper-inflation, matters not one whit
of difference to the corporate and political elites that control our destiny: for with the realization
of their
vision
of a
World Central Bank, in which a new global currency controlled by them can be printed to suit
their needs, they will be set free from all earthly constraints, or so they believe.
With America as the world policeman and the world banker – in alliance with our European
satellites – the Washington elite can extend their rule over the entire earth. It's true we won't
have much to show for it, here in America: with the dollar destroyed, we'll lose our economic primacy,
and be subsumed into what George Herbert Walker Bush called the "New
World Order." Burdened with defending the corporate profits of the big banks and exporters abroad,
and also with bailing them out on the home front when their self-created bubbles burst, the American
people will see a dramatic drop in their standard of living – our sacrifice to the gods of "internationalism."
That's what they mean when they praise the new "globalized" economy.
Yet the American people don't want to be sacrificed, either to corporate gods or some desiccated
idol of internationalism, and they are getting increasingly angry – and increasing savvy when it
comes to identifying the source of their troubles.
This brings us to the prospects for a left-right alliance, both short term and in the long run.
In the immediate future, the US budget crisis could be considerably alleviated if we would simply
end the wars started by George W. Bush and
vigorously pursued by his successor. Aside from that, how many troops do we still have in Europe
– more than half a century after World War II? How many in Korea – long after the Korean war? Getting
rid of all this would no doubt provide enough savings to ensure that those Social Security checks
go out – but that's a bargain Obama will never make.
All those dollars, shipped overseas, enrich the
military-industrial
complex and their friends, the exporters – and drain the very life blood out of the rest of
us. Opposition to this policy ought to be the basis of a
left-right alliance, a movement to bring
America home and put America first.
In the long term, there is the basis for a more comprehensive alliance: the de-privileging of
the banking sector, which cemented its rule with the establishment of the Federal Reserve. That,
however, is a topic too complex to be adequately covered in a single column, and so I'll just leave
open the intriguing possibility.
"Left" and "right" mean nothing in the current context: the real division is between government-privileged
plutocrats and the rest of us. What you have to ask yourself is this: which side are you on?
"... It was predictable that by going to Syria Russia will make itself more of a target for terrorist
attacks than before, as Russia now has a lot more enemies than it did before. ..."
"... They fail to understand one simple fact – Russia already was a target of these groups. ..."
"... I would also add, that Russian does NOT have more enemies than before. Russia has the same
number of enemies, in the exact same quantity and quality as before. The only difference is that
Russia was warned in advance this time, by one of Americas poodles. Remember Gerashchenkos
warning, on Mirotvorec ? ..."
"... On Wednesday A. Piontkovskiy, D. Bykov and I shall represent Russia at a meeting in Kiev
entitled Slavs Against the Moscow terror . It will be a live transmission. ..."
"... – I was sitting in a cafe last night, right across the Montparnasse station. Suddenly I
saw, from the side of the hall came out a lot of elderly Jews speaking in Russian. Im interested
in, stopped one of them and asked what was it … And it turns out, there was a meeting of young
Russian poets. ..."
It was predictable that by going to Syria Russia will make itself more of a target for terrorist
attacks than before, as Russia now has a lot more enemies than it did before.
Indeed it
was Nostradamized from the day 1 by the unlikely common opinion alliance of:
1) Russian liberasts.
2) Western pundits.
3) "Russian" patriotic putinslivsiks
They fail to understand one simple fact – Russia already was a target of these groups.
And the fact that terract was prevented is a reason not for concern but for a sense of pride of
one's Security Services doing their job. For Russia "not to have any enemies" means to curl up
and give up on any foreign policy, allowing "the adults" to run their freak show of "Here comes
the Freedom and 'Mocracy. bitches!".
I would also add, that Russian does NOT have more enemies than before. Russia has the same
number of enemies, in the exact same quantity and quality as before. The only difference is that
Russia was "warned" in advance this time, by one of America's poodles. Remember Gerashchenko's
warning, on "Mirotvorec" ?
Yes, the only difference now is that the masks are slipping revealing the truly hideous face of
the Western empire. Other than that, business as usual.
"Exposed" and then there follows a string of allegations.
"Russia's FSB and GRU (military
intelligence) are mostly likely assigning Phillips 'mini-ops' to attack western organizations,
journalists, reporters and researchers who debunk the Kremlin's propaganda narrative."
Sad. So young – I'm assuming – and his mind already gone. Only in such an oxygen-deficient atmosphere
could the FSB deliberately recruit somebody because they are "bumbling and incompetent" and speak
Russian at the third-grade level or less. Lots of good press for Graham, though.
He's Andrei Piontkovskiy, former member of that very short-lived Coordinating Council of the
Russian Opposition, you know – Navalny's parliament in waiting that met a couple of times in
kreakl cafés: even Udaltsov (remember him?) called its members a "committee of wankers".
Well lookeee here:
On Wednesday A. Piontkovskiy, D. Bykov and I shall represent Russia at a meeting in Kiev
entitled "Slavs Against the Moscow terror". It will be a live transmission.
The Tweet is off a certain Sasha Sotnik of
Sotnik TV.
Sotnik TV is not a typical Russian television channel: It is only available on the web,
not on television screens. It has no live broadcasts. And it is run primarily by just two people:
husband and wife Sasha Sotnik, the reporter, and Mariya Orlovskaya, the camera operator (both
pictured above).
But what's most different about Sotnik TV is its outspoken criticism of Russian President Vladimir
Putin, which has led to Sotnik and Orlovskaya being arrested briefly and accused of possessing
explosives.
Strong views
Sasha Sotnik is a believer in the liberal "European values" that Putin has forcefully rejected
in recent months, and does not flinch from expressing strong views in his videos, which are mainly
distributed through the couple's YouTube channel.
Bet they love Sasha at Auntie BBC.
If he likes liberal "European values" so much, then why doesn't he stay in Banderastan?
Do you think Sotnik and Piontkovskiy and Bykov will be shot dead in the street when they return
to Mordor, thereby becoming yet more tragic statistics attributed to the Dark Lord's reign of
terror?
After all, Lord Putin's ever watchful eye not only knows what everyone is thinking,
but also of what they are going to think and plan and usually punishes his enemies before they
even think of doing something that he will not like, such is his awesome power and majesty that
holds this once mighty nation in sway ….
These brave opposition souls must live a life of perfectly abject terror and despair.
I mean, look at Bykov: he looks like a really worried man – doesn't he?
I believe he's lost pounds since Putin seized control of the state, such has been his worry
and concern over what has been going on here since 2000.
Too late, probably. Their personal addresses and the names of family members are probably all
over whatyoucallem, that Russian squealer database that encourages people to inform on other people
for anti-government views. There was a name for it…separatist! That's it, separatists who harbor
anti-government attitudes!! I read all about it a while ago, but I forget the name of it. You
could go there and rat out people for their personal views and then some wet-man from Putin's
personal kill squad would go round to his house, make some excuse to get him outside and then
cap him right there in the street. Poor Sotnik and Bykov and Piontkovskiy: they're as good as
done for, like that murdered martyr Yulia Latynina.
"On Wednesday A. Piontkovskiy, D. Bykov and I shall represent Russia at a meeting in Kiev
entitled "Slavs Against the Moscow terror". It will be a live transmission."
During her
emigration in Paris, famous pre-Revolutionary satirical writer Nadezhda Teffi (nee Lokhvitskaya,
in marriage – Buchinskaya) once became a witness to such a scene:
"- Сижу я вчера вечером в кафе, против монпарнасского вокзала. Вдруг вижу, из бокового зала
выходят много пожилых евреев, говорят по-русски. Я заинтересовалась, остановила одного и спрашиваю,
что это было такое… А это, оказывается, было собрание молодых русских поэтов"."
– I was sitting in a cafe last night, right across the Montparnasse station. Suddenly I
saw, from the side of the hall came out a lot of elderly Jews speaking in Russian. I'm interested
in, stopped one of them and asked what was it … And it turns out, there was a meeting of young
Russian poets. "
"... This. The most infuriating part about Obomba is the smug "smarter-than-you" certainty he
has. He was a community organizer and one-term state Senator but somehow he started sniffing all
the farts the sycophants were wafting his way about just how clever he really was. Then he installed
a bunch of also-smart groupthinker Berkeley-ites from the "duty to protect" and "humanitarian
bombing" crowd, Chanel-suited exceptionalist egomaniacs who thought they were Kissinger (Samantha
Powers, Hilary, Susan Rice et al.) ..."
"... BHO thought he could triangulate and "out-clever" everyone on everything, from health care,
where he managed the worst of all worlds that fattened Big Insurance AND screwed up the cost of
care…to Wall St where he fattened TBTF AND screwed up Dodd-Frank. In the ME he thought he could
cleverly play all sides off against each other, the Turks, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Israelis,
the Saudis... and stunningly also al-Qaeda themselves were just another co-optable pawn. ..."
"... But as Warren Buffet says "when the tide goes out you can see who's swimming naked". Tide's
heading out…and as far as I can see the Russia/Iran/Iraq/Israel/Syria/Kurd team, with Brother
China, fed-up Pakistan and resurgent India backing things up, is looking pretty good. Sclero-Europe
has long ago ceded their sovereignty and relevance, LatAm as usual is absent from consideration…what
am I missing? ..."
"... Interesting things are happening with Russian involvement in Syria. Are we seeing the global
balance of power tip before our eyes? The U.S. is losing it's sole hegemony status and that could
be a good thing if Washington can realize this and accept that and adopt diplomacy and cooperation
to maintain what position it still has instead of denial followed by escalating aggression.
..."
"... The FSA = al Nusrah = al Qaeda in Syria. The re-labeling was invoked so that BHO could
send weapons to al Nusrah… the player that currently has snapped up EVERY weapon the President
sent into the fight. Most recently that's meant TOW missiles. ..."
"... Good lord. Stratfor is well-known as politicized propaganda machine that works in concert
with large multinational corporations to further their interests in foreign countries. It's not
a secret. ..."
"... Stratfor is Neocon central, I should think. They stock gasbags in quantity. ..."
"... The question I must ask: what happens to all these Islamic fighters after they are run
out of Syria and Iraq? Only safe territory for them – away from the Russian air force – will be
US allies, like Jordan and Arabia. ..."
"...
Israel, with its excuse of no peace partners, may end up with enemies from hell. ..."
"... Suppose that Obama just decides to flood Syria with weapons? Anti-tank, anti-air, medium-range
missiles with cluster bombs that can hit the Russian bases… America may not have any sense of
long-range strategy but we are very good at breaking things, and our leaders throw fits and take
it personally when their plans go awry… ..."
"... Of course giving all sorts of advanced weapons to the mostly jihadist Syrian 'rebels' would
in the long run certainly cause a lot of blowback to the United States, but that's never stopped
us before… ..."
"... U.S. air superiority is based on air superiority, not anti-aircraft weaponry. Afghanistan
and Syria are radically different much like Vietnam and Iraq were different. It's much easier
for the Russians to supply their bases than in Afghanistan where they had to rely on helicopters
flying around mountain valleys. ..."
"... Advanced weaponry will be seen by Russian eyes in the sky and can be hit by missiles from
the Caspian apparently. I hate to break it to you, but the U.S. R D budget has been wasted on
projects like F-35 and contracting fraud. ..."
"... Why does my Spidy Sense tell me that the foundation of the Saudi oil ministry policy of
continuing to flood a depressed market with low cost oil was a secret agreement between Obomber
and the Saudi ruling family? The plan was to bankrupt Russia by a two-pronged attack- the fraudulent
US sponsored sanctions based upon manufactured reality events in Ukraine and the Saudi capacity
to control the marginal price of oil. The carrot offered by the US was a piece of the action in
the trans Syrian gas pipeline- and continued protection against internal opposition.
..."
"... Saudi Arabia wants Putin to suffer - as he's the patron of Assad - of whom they hate the
most. Low crude pricing has pounded the Russian ruble. Putin's crew is also going insolvent. The
flight capital out of Russia is relentless. ..."
"... Contracting fraud, where the real money is made. It was never about oil, just contracts
and egos. Oil has to be sold at an honest price for a variety of reasons, but I can't judge a
cruise missile's price behind a veil of secrecy. ..."
"... Then there is the natural failing of leaders domestically who search for scapegoats. Half
of the foreign policy pronouncements are full of whispered hisses of "China." Don't pay attention
to me. It's those red Chinese and their currency manipulation. ..."
"... The Russian expeditionary force in Syria is indeed highly vulnerable, but only if the Western
Bloc wants to risk a major war. Now the Western Bloc can prevail against Russia, at any level
of escalation, albeit at mounting risk. Nobody should expect today's Russia to be able to match
the might of the Western Bloc. ..."
"... I expect the Western Bloc will presume that they can prevail through politico-economic
attrition against Russia. They probably can. However, the longer this complex regional war in
the Middle East continues, the more likely things are to veer off unpredictably. ..."
"... "In my read, Russia and Iran have just popped open the door to a solution in Syria. All
the pieces are in place but one: Washington's capacity to acknowledge the strategic failure now
so evident and to see beyond the narrowest definition of where its interests lie. This brings
us to the paradox embedded in those questions Putin and Zarif and a few others now pose: American
primacy is no longer in America's interest. Get your mind around this and you have arrived in
the 21st century." ..."
"... The CIA began a covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition
to Assad. Over that time, the CIA has trained an estimated 10,000 fighters, although the number
still fighting with so-called moderate forces is unclear. ..."
"... No kidding -- Both involved CIA proxy armies that had no operational security to speak of.
Both were authorized by the Oval Office. And we know how much BHO admires JFK. ..."
"... It is important to get Russian viewpoint especially since most Americans are monolingual.
Also, it is hard for us not to root for the home team. Still Syria is a gigantic SNAFU. It is
so far beyond incompetence it has to be purposeful. This is the ultimate expression of the Shock
Doctrine. Collapse Russia and gain control its energy resources ..."
"... There are 1.6 billion Sunni Muslims. Want-to-be Jihadists will flock to Syria to fight
the Russian Crusaders. Barrack Obama has already warned Vladimir Putin of a quagmire. His continued
arming the Sunnis is a purposeful act to ensure this. World War III starts when Russia shoots
down an American aircraft on a combat mission over Syria. ..."
"... Give the Russians some credit for finesse. All they need do is shoot down an Israeli jet
attacking a Syrian government position in support of some Syrian "Moderates" near Damascus. I'll
be watching for a Russian campaign to rid the Syrian skies of 'Western' drones. That would be
a sign of serious intentions on the part of Russia. ..."
Russia has established a no-fly zone on every one of Syria's frontiers, and will make an Alawite
fortress along the coastal plain. As for what happens in the northern and western deserts, that's
up to the Shiite armies of Iran and Iraq to decide, with or without Russian air cover, but with the
assurance of no American, NATO, Turkish, Saudi, Jordanian or Emirati air cover.
Gennady Nechaev, a military analyst at Vzglyad in Moscow, explains: "There is airspace, but either
it is controlled by the US or by our Air Force. But today there is no issue of control of air space.
We are talking about control of ground space. There operations can be of two types: direct destruction
from the air and from insulation of the area of operations by air in order to avoid movements of
the enemy and incoming reserves. In this case, the task is hardly feasible, as there is an open border
with Iraq on the side of Turkey. The boundaries are not controlled. The problem could be solved [by
Russia] if a blow can be dealt along the entire depth of the space under the control of ISIS. At
the moment there is an operation against the infrastructure of ISIS. Infrastructure is a fairly loose
concept, because they don't have civilian infrastructure. There are military links and connexions
which must [operate] to supply weapons. For these purposes Russia is now applying its strokes."
... ... ...
What if the Saudis shift their forces from bombing southward and eastward in the Yemen towards
the west, and they invite US forces to defend their sorties from Saudi airfields or from carriers
in the Persian Gulf? An Egyptian military source comments: "The king [Salman] has Alzheimer's, and
his son [Mohammad bin Salman], the real ruler of the kingdom, is too young; too insecure in the royal
succession; and too vulnerable domestically. If either of them makes so much as a nervous twitch
towards the Syrian frontier, the oil price will return to the level Russia wants, and needs. There
will be no support for the Saudis against the Russians from their only real Arab guarantor, [Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah el-] Sisi. And long ago, when Obama installed the Moslem Brotherhood in Cairo,
[Sisi] realized the American strategy, Obama's promises, are the gravest threat to Egyptian and Arab
security there is. That's because he can't control the Washington Amazons who run his warmaking machine,
or the jihadists he employs to fight. Without air cover, supply lines, and dollars, they are doomed.
The Saudi sheikhs won't risk trying to save them."
For more on Putin's management of the Saudi relationship, read
this.
London sources familiar with
Israeli politics add that Russian strategy has the tacit backing of Israel. "This is because [President
Vladimir] Putin has told [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that Israel can count on a no-threat
zone running from Damascus south and east to the Golan. No threat means no Syrian Army, no jihadists.
Russia and Israel will now have what [Israeli Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion once explained was
Israel's long-term objective – the breakup of the large, potentially powerful secular Arab states
into small sectarian territories too weak to do anything but threaten each other."
There is not the slightest chance that BHO has any interest in squaring off with Putin.
What the President has been doing is to support al Qaeda fronts - most particularly al Nusrah.
Both al Nusrah and IS are joined at the hip and do not fight each other - much. Dr. Zawahiri
is their mutal mediator, with plenty of correspondence to his credit.
ISIS // ISIL // IS wouldn't be a serious factor if it was not for the UK, US, and Jordan. These
three patron powers trained the core block of al Baghdadi's boys - in the northern Jordanian desert
- just a few years back - remember ?
It was all over the news - particularly in the Arab Middle East.
They graduated - and promptly went rogue - taking out Mosul - probably by simply phoning ahead.
For the US had given them first class communications gear - that they were supposed to be using
in Syria. It, however, worked its magic even better - intercepting Iraqi cell phone frequencies
- so that al Baghdadi could threaten the generals and their families quite directly.
In this, they were entirely aping the USAF's gambit in Libya. Remember Commando Solo ? It was
exactly such phone calls to Libyan generals that broke up Kaddafy's entire army. We admitted that
we'd called just about everyone in the dictator's immediate family, to boot.
Well, the fanatics in Libya couldn't miss any of that.
And our Pentagon gave them the same tools// toys that the big boys have.
Without this communications gear, ISIS would never have been able to roll fast, roll large,
and co-ordinate everything - pretty much without a hitch.
The FSA is a fictive fig leaf dreamed up by the spin smiths at the White House. There never
has been a Free Syrian Army. There are NO secular fighters in the field. This is a flat out religious
war. One has to be deliberately dense to repress that reality.
Every single item ever given to the so called FSA has been deeded over to the fanatics - probaly
with kisses, too.
All of the above is idiot obvious. The only place that reality has no traction is in the West.
When it can't be denied, the public will come to know that BHO has treasonously enabled al
Qaeda in war time.
That both of these fronts have direct AQ connections is out on the open record. Both are still
in communication with Dr. Zawahiri. The only split is that al Baghdadi wants to be the caliph
and run the ever expanding caliphate… a Napoleon, a Hitler for our time.
BHO has been vectoring weapons to al Nusrah - by the flimsy pretext that they were intended
for moderate rebels. That lie won't hold water.
The TOW missiles that al Nusrah has received were entirely responsible for the massive reverses
that Assad suffered of late. Go to YouTube to see the jihadi footage. It's a pretty good bet that
the Russians have targeted the ammo dumps most likely to have these missiles. The Russians have
put their hits up on YouTube, too.
The only player that's going to be backing down: BHO. That's who.
BTW, at any time Putin can pull the President's card house flat. I suspect Putin is going for
maximum embarrassment. His treasonous support of AQ could finally lead to impeachment and conviction…
throwing Biden into the Oval Office. Such a travail would be triggered indirectly - so that Putin's
fingerprints would not be at all obvious.
In the meantime, Putin likes the fool right where he sits.
TedWa, October 10, 2015 at 11:58 am
I must say, nice lay out of the facts. There's so many things O should be impeached and jailed
for and if you think this one has him dead to rights, well…. cumbaya bro
James Levy, October 10, 2015 at 12:28 pm
I would bet the farm that the leadership in the House and Senate are, at this moment, unindicted
co-conspirators and Obama can prove it. There will be no impeachment over any of this. It would
bring down the whole system.
"Turkish officials claimed a third incident on Monday, when an unidentified MiG-29 fighter
jet locked its radar for four and a half minutes on eight Turkish F-16 jets that were on patrol
on their side of the border, in apparent preparation to open fire."…
This is a wake-up call. Moscow is indicating that there's a new sheriff in town and that Turkey
had better behave itself or there's going to be trouble. There's not going to be any US-Turkey
no-fly zone over North Syria, there's not going to be any aerial attacks on Syrian sites from
the Turkish side of the border, and there certainly is not going to be any ground invasion of
Turkish troops into Syria. The Russian Aerospace Defence Forces now control the skies over Syria
and they are determined to defend Syria's sovereign borders. That's the message. Period."
My guess is the Russian Air Force has a few more "messages" up its sleeve…
OIFVet, October 10, 2015 at 2:20 pm
There are no Russian Mig-29s in Syria.
blert, October 10, 2015 at 2:33 pm
The 'mistaken' Russian penetrations into Turkish air space are designed to 'brush back' the
Turks. ( Baseball term: a pitch is thrown very close by the batter to get him to inch away from
the plate. )
And it has suceeded. While not given much publicity in the Western press Erdogan has been injecting
his air force directly over Syria - about 30 kilometers - give or take.
He has also deployed SAMs rather foreward, too.
The net effect has been to drive Assad's air force out of the skies all along the border.
But, much further south, Syria is a total desert with but one river running through it, the Euphrates.
So Erdogan's play has been effectively shielding ISIS from Assad's pitiful air force. ( All downed
pilots are assassinated via torture by the fanatics.
Putin is terminating Erdogan's gambit.
Putin is simultaneously protecting the Kurds - as Erdogan can't beat them up any more with his
air force. One can reasonably expect that 'somehow' the Kurds will experience a shift in fortunes
- as Putin becomes their devious patron. He'll want to arm them in such a manner that Iran and
Iraq don't 'kick.'
That should now be easy. He can over fly ISIS turf from the Caspian sea - spitting weapons out
the back window like Zardoz, when over Kurdish positions. (1974, Sean Connery)
Jesper, October 10, 2015 at 8:29 am
The US has stopped doing strategy so while short term victories can be had the long-term is
only obtained by chance…. The ones in US with strategies are the ones who are pursuing personal
strategies, those strategies sometimes happen to align with US interests.
& to be seen as a reliable ally (and therefore an ally wished for) then a country needs to back
up their allies even(!) when times get tough. Russia is doing that in Syria. France is doing that
in Mali: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13881978
UK & the US has been doing the same numerous times throughout history, Maybe even the backing
of the current regimes in Afghanistan & Iraq would fall into the category of backing up an ally,
or maybe those are more 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.
blert, October 10, 2015 at 2:50 pm
Both Obama and Clinton are big into 'triangulation.'
Meaning that they are too clever by half - and ALWAYS mistake domestic political tactics and tricks
for viable gambits in international affairs.
With Bill Clinton you had a president that spun on a dime, famously flip-flopping four times in
a single day on this or that domestic issue.
With Obama you have a president that just CAN'T accept and adopt - straight out - ANY recommended
policy suite proferred by his own professionals. Instead, he runs it by Axelrod and the other
spin smiths - gauging it for domestic and media impact.
He really thinks that he's the smartest man in Washington, and that his 'play' has been brilliant.
He is a bit perturbed that the rest of the world is not following his scripts.
His 'clever' scheme to use the CIA (et. al.) to sustain a proxy anti-Assad army has blown up like
a Roadrunner gag.
The jibes from Putin and others are particularly irritating.
No-one now is kissing his Islamic ring.
( Yes, his marriage ring is ornately inscribed with Islamic iconography. Google around for it.
He's worn it since Harvard, long before Michelle.)
binky Bear, October 10, 2015 at 3:45 pm
Not only deeply informed but a telepath to boot. How fortunate to be near-omniscient, and to
support so deeply such complex arguments with provable facts.
blert, October 10, 2015 at 6:01 pm
Where have you been ?
Clinton's 'triangulation' was a term of art brought up largely by himself.
As for the proxy army… Now even the AP is willing to 'fess up.
The big error in the AP article is dating it to 2013. The project was started even earlier.
Telepath ?
Reading their local press did the trick. You will find Indian and Pakistani English language publications
hitting right on target - realities that 'elude' the NY Times.
This. The most infuriating part about Obomba is the smug "smarter-than-you" certainty he
has. He was a community organizer and one-term state Senator but somehow he started sniffing all
the farts the sycophants were wafting his way about just how clever he really was. Then he installed
a bunch of also-smart groupthinker Berkeley-ites from the "duty to protect" and "humanitarian
bombing" crowd, Chanel-suited exceptionalist egomaniacs who thought they were Kissinger (Samantha
Powers, Hilary, Susan Rice et al.)
BHO thought he could triangulate and "out-clever" everyone on everything, from health care,
where he managed the worst of all worlds that fattened Big Insurance AND screwed up the cost of
care…to Wall St where he fattened TBTF AND screwed up Dodd-Frank. In the ME he thought he could
cleverly play all sides off against each other, the Turks, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Israelis,
the Saudis... and stunningly also al-Qaeda themselves were just another co-optable pawn.
But as Warren Buffet says "when the tide goes out you can see who's swimming naked". Tide's
heading out…and as far as I can see the Russia/Iran/Iraq/Israel/Syria/Kurd team, with Brother
China, fed-up Pakistan and resurgent India backing things up, is looking pretty good. Sclero-Europe
has long ago ceded their sovereignty and relevance, LatAm as usual is absent from consideration…what
am I missing?
Unfortunately after the Hilary coronation we'll have another serial "third way" triangulator
in charge who never saw a war, arms program, or covert adventure she didn't like. Except when
she didn't like it, which was right after she did like it, and right before the previous time
she didn't like it.
Good article… gives (from all I've read elsewhere) good, accurate context to what's going on
now, and why (IMO) Putin's actions make sense. That is, if "solutions" (eg. ending blood shed,
restore sustainable stability) in Syria is the objective.
I'm also struck by some retrospective considerations, beyond what author (with limited space)
hits very generally (eg: Brzezinski/Carter). In particular, all the secret prisons and indiscriminate
detentions by BushCo (torture), much of it seemingly continued by BO. And, the "unintended" consequences
of that.
Reading Wikipedia's
bio on al-Baghdadi this morning, seems he was a very well educated cleric (doctorate in both
Islamic Studies and Education) even well after Bush's Iraq adventure began. He was non-descript,
low key… seems little evidence he had violtent inclinations:
"I was with Baghdadi at the Islamic University. We studied the same course, but he wasn't
a friend. He was quiet, and retiring. He spent time alone. Later, when he helped found the
Islamic Army, Mr Dabash fought alongside militia leaders who were committing some of the worst
excesses in violence and would later form al-Qaeda… [but] Baghdadi was not one of them, I used
to know all the leaders (of the insurgency) personally. Zarqawi (the former leader of al-Qaeda)
was closer than a brother to me… But I didn't know Baghdadi. He was insignificant. He used
to lead prayer in a mosque near my area. No one really noticed him."
This bio also says this (which I didn't know):
Bakr al-Baghdadi was arrested by US Forces-Iraq on 2 February 2004 near Fallujah and detained
at Camp Bucca detention center under his name Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry[22] as a "civilian
internee" until December 2004, when he was recommended for release by a Combined Review and
Release Board.[24][29][30] In December 2004, he was released as a "low level prisoner".[22]
A number of newspapers and cable news channels have instead stated that al-Baghdadi was
interned from 2005 to 2009. These reports originate from an interview with the former commander
of Camp Bucca, Colonel Kenneth King, and are not substantiated by Department of Defense records.[31][32][33]
Al-Baghdadi was imprisoned at Camp Bucca along with other future leaders of ISIL. (emphasis
added)
Would be hugely informative to have a means of cross checking records (if they exist?) of U.S.
detainees as "illegal combatants", their violent "proclivities" prior to incarceration, and how
many of them became Jihadists after release. The utter injustice of this, in the face of nothing
more then an invasion and occupation of Iraq… this cause & affect is ignored and unacknowledged
by leadership/policy makers on our shores. And making "exception" for these policies guarantees
the continued disastrous results, ad infinitum.
Global conventions against torture have stood for a long time, with a strong moral grounding…
based on understanding, that abrogating them WILL produce the kinds of results we've seen, expanding
like dominoes.
Somehow, someway… if U.S. is ever to get on a course other then collapsing from within, this
stuff needs to be examined thoroughly and cut out of public and official "acceptance" like the
cancer that it is.
The problem with any bio on al Baghdadi is that the CIA// Pentagon has re-used that name//
title over and over. This is topped off by the fact that the Muslims use that nome-de-guerre over
and over, too.
So one is always left puzzling over whether this or that reference is getting crossed over
with yet another al Baghdadi. The Pentagon, itself, admits that they have made that exact error
many, many, times. They've 'killed' al Baghdadi numerous times - only for another elusive al Baghdadi
to pop up.
Some analysts contend that the name is really more towards a title - just like Caesar. After
he died, all of his successors were so labeled. The only folks that seem to have the slightest
clue about what's up are the desert Arabs. (Jordan, KSA, Kuwait - and the Awakening Movement in
Iraq.)
Everyone else is 'stupid' - counter-informed - like Dr. Zbig. What a gas bag. Dangerous, too.
I don't think it's useful to refer to "al Baghdadi" as a "nom de guerre." It's a nickname,
"the guy from Baghdad," in a culture where names are rather indeterminate. OK, I'm not an Arabic
linguist, but I know that a guy may be known by some of his friends as "Son of X," by others of
his friends as "Father of Y," and by others as "Abdu al [insert attribute of Allah]." I think
this makes it problematic for many Americans, who are not known for language ability.
Actually, adopting a 'nom de guerre' is extremely popular for the fanatics.
1) Like all super heros, they don't want blow back upon their non-combatant family members.
This is especially evident with their infamous executioners. But the tic is not at all limited.
2) The fake persona permits the jihadist easy travel when outside the war zone. Many of the
fanatics are claiming to flit to and fro - from America to Syria - with grace and ease. This ease
of travel was confirmed by an elderly German journalist, (75) who visited ISIS. They scared the
Hell out of him. It also terrified him that he could, himself, flit from Germany to Syria, with
little to inconvenience him. (!) It was all too easy. Yikes !
In his opinion, the fanatics are shuttling all over the place. Current border controls are
wholly ineffective with these players. If a slow moving retiree can make the transit, that's telling.
Interesting things are happening with Russian involvement in Syria. Are we seeing the global
balance of power tip before our eyes? The U.S. is losing it's sole hegemony status and that could
be a good thing if Washington can realize this and accept that and adopt diplomacy and cooperation
to maintain what position it still has instead of denial followed by escalating aggression.
A reborn Russia/Iran/Iraq/Syria alliance could check the brutality of the current U.S./Israel/Saudi
Arabia/Turkey axis. Have seen articles that Iraq is impressed with Russian effectiveness against
U.S. funded ISIS that is creating chaos in Iraq, and they may ask Putin to do the same thing there
he is doing in Syria. Wonder if O's ego can handle that?
Even signs that some in Europe see Russia is helping them by intervening in Syria and connecting
the dots, as in "WTF are we doing hurting ourselves pissing off Russia in service of U.S.?"
With all that going on, I was dumbfounded seeing headlines that the U.S. is preparing a major
naval challenge to China's islands, as if we don't have enough conflict on our hands already.
"If either of them makes so much as a nervous twitch towards the Syrian frontier, the
oil price will return to the level Russia wants, and needs."
""This is because [President Vladimir] Putin has told [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu
that Israel can count on a no-threat zone running from Damascus south and east to the Golan."
Those are a couple of very interesting points that look win-win for Russia. Especially with
the Saudi and Turkish regimes having internal problems as well.
Here's an analysis from the other side of the aisle:
The bone I'll pick with it is that the 'far' position taken is "negotiated settlement". The
U.S. and Saudis appear over-extended and thus under-committed. Russia has advanced a Knight, and
S-400's and cruise missiles are discomforting if NATO tries to advance the Queen of overwhelming
air power (see the Stratfor map of U.S. vs Russian air strikes). When the BATNA is a win-win,
all negotiations are just plays for time.
Stratfor totally lost me with their fantasy Free Syrian Army schtick. It does not exist.
That scribe is pipe dreaming. Absolutely no-one in the field identifies with the FSA. Not.
A. One.
The FSA = al Nusrah = al Qaeda in Syria. The re-labeling was invoked so that BHO could
send weapons to al Nusrah… the player that currently has snapped up EVERY weapon the President
sent into the fight. Most recently that's meant TOW missiles.
Go to YouTube to see countless jihadi videos uploaded showing how al Nusrah has been driving
Assad into retreat.
The rest of the article is pure jibberish… counter-factual… aka lies.
This is an especially important post, as it is all but impossible to gain a balance in analysis
or reporting from the press in the United States on the Russian initiative and engagement in Syria.
Stratfor is great reading…polished and confident, always written with a hint of being' in the
know' , and yet is less useful as a forecasting tool than a dart board (without any darts). Also
amusing is to wonder about the irony of the president's Nobel peace prize and what effect the
fear of the resurfacing of the irony/hypocrisy each time the president engages the country in
yet another "conflict". If you imagine the president being issued a certain number of conflict
cards at the beginning of terms, well, they must be used judiciously….especially when one has
that damned prize to think about. Wonder if that's another reason the Russians got to go Russian
in Syria first.
Good lord. Stratfor is well-known as politicized propaganda machine that works in concert
with large multinational corporations to further their interests in foreign countries. It's not
a secret.
Russian operations in Syria began right before Bibi was due to visit Moscow. Now it's a nice,
neat package to assume Russia made Israel an offer it couldn't refuse, however Putin can't make
deals with everyone. After all, he's not Donald Trump.
My guess would be that Hizbollah will be rewarded for their support and be able to keep the
arms they get from Russia. Israel will simply have to stay out of southern Lebanon for good. That's
going to be a tough one for the Jewish Taliban, with their Greater Israel project, to swallow.
Ben-Gurion may have wanted peaceful borders but it is the last thing modern Israel wants. The
Assads kept the peace on the Golan border for 40 years – fat lot of good that did them. Peaceful
borders means no excuse for Israel to avoid making peace with the Palestinians.
The question I must ask: what happens to all these Islamic fighters after they are run
out of Syria and Iraq? Only safe territory for them – away from the Russian air force – will be
US allies, like Jordan and Arabia. Hamas is not as extreme as ISIS, however the Palestinian
situation becomes more extreme every day. Could ISIS end up working with the Palestinians?
Israel, with its excuse of no peace partners, may end up with enemies from hell. Even if
ISIS doesn't take up the Palestinian cause, it still has to go somewhere. Seems the chickens will
come home to roost.
Bibi and al Sisi romanced Putin once Obama showed his colors. The President intended to take
America down a peg… okay… many pegs. Instead, the down-pegging has occurred to himself.
He's now totally ineffective in foreign affairs. He is scorned and ridiculed… universally.
Interesting. But I wouldn't hand Putin the victory cup just yet.
Suppose that Obama just decides to flood Syria with weapons? Anti-tank, anti-air, medium-range
missiles with cluster bombs that can hit the Russian bases… America may not have any sense of
long-range strategy but we are very good at breaking things, and our leaders throw fits and take
it personally when their plans go awry…
Of course giving all sorts of advanced weapons to the mostly jihadist Syrian 'rebels' would
in the long run certainly cause a lot of blowback to the United States, but that's never stopped
us before…
I suspect that the Kurds and Houthis, as well as the Shia in KSA's oil producing regions will
suddenly find excellent source of weapons, plunging Turkey, KSA, and the emirates in quite the
chaos.
The issue is moving the weapons. Jordan's border is open desert. Iraq is warming to the Russians
with an active war zone along the border. Israel doesn't want weapons running through their territory
without control. The water is locked up, and Lebanon is full of Hezbollah.
After today's events, who knows where Turkey is?
Where is the money coming from? Americans aren't brining up Syria on the campaign trail except
to note they were opposed to intervention. The Saudis are suffering from low oil prices and their
own quagmire.
U.S. air superiority is based on air superiority, not anti-aircraft weaponry. Afghanistan
and Syria are radically different much like Vietnam and Iraq were different. It's much easier
for the Russians to supply their bases than in Afghanistan where they had to rely on helicopters
flying around mountain valleys.
Advanced weaponry will be seen by Russian eyes in the sky and can be hit by missiles from
the Caspian apparently. I hate to break it to you, but the U.S. R&D budget has been wasted on
projects like F-35 and contracting fraud.
Besides the shale operations, the overextended KSA is now in trouble, particularly with rising
domestic oil consumption and internal Al-Saud family dissent growing.
Then there is the appalling poverty that may no longer be alleviated with oil revenue subsidies.
In the 1980s the Saudis matched CIA spending for the mujaheddin 1:1, which really made a huge
difference. If the US wants to launch a proxy war on Russia in Syria, and wants the Saudis to
help pay for it, it may find itself with a disintegrating KSA, one where the oil fields are in
predominantly Shia areas. Blowback might be putting it quite mildly.
There are only 10,000 non-wealthy Saudi men and only half are of fighting age. The House of
Saud doesn't have a great faction to stand for the regime if anything were to go to South. I'm
sure the Hajj stampede and crane collapse aren't sitting well with the king in the hospital. From
the rumors, King Fahd's party are trying get to retake power. Fahd was pals with the old man Assad.
The Royal Guard is roughly the size of the national army, so there are two separate armies
in Saudi Arabia with separate Com and structures which demonstrates the lack of faith in the army.
Costs aside, I wonder if the real aim is to keep much of the Saudi military as possible occupied
I stead of at home where they can cause trouble. With only 30,000 or so members, the House of
Saud can be replaced at any old time.
Why does my Spidy Sense tell me that the foundation of the Saudi oil ministry policy of
continuing to flood a depressed market with low cost oil was a secret agreement between Obomber
and the Saudi ruling family? The plan was to bankrupt Russia by a two-pronged attack- the fraudulent
US sponsored sanctions based upon manufactured reality events in Ukraine and the Saudi capacity
to control the marginal price of oil. The carrot offered by the US was a piece of the action in
the trans Syrian gas pipeline- and continued protection against internal opposition.
Worked about as well as most US foreign policy "initiatives". Wouldn't it be ironic if
the end game was the overthrow of the decadent Saudi ruling family and a post revolutionary Saudi
Arabia in the Russian/Chinese axis?
What I fear from all this is a 'Caliphate' extending from Mosul down around Basra (got to give
those Sixers credit,) and on into The (Former) Kingdom. Ben-Gurions' Arab 'splintered' states
could come back to bite his successors as one big confederation of "The Faithful."
It's the Iran deal. After that, nothing else really matters to the Saudis.
The low oil price was never co-ordinated with anybody.
It's targets are - in no particular order:
Assad
Iran
Russia
American frackers
The Saudis have been disrupting Iranian oil exports to Asia - by under cutting them on price
and quality.
Until Obama released the Shah's old deposits ( my how they have compounded into real money
) Iran was going insolvent.
Saudi Arabia wants Putin to suffer - as he's the patron of Assad - of whom they hate the
most. Low crude pricing has pounded the Russian ruble. Putin's crew is also going insolvent. The
flight capital out of Russia is relentless.
American frackers represent a dire strategic threat to the Saudi clan. Such methods have every
prospect of making Saudi oil an insignificant resource.
For, on the math, fracking ( like flotation cells a century ago ) figure to increase the resource
base – – crude recoveries - by a factor of one-hundred.
That last figure may astonish, but it's true. All this time drillers have discovered vast oil
deposits - that were too thin to work - with vertical bore holes. Some of these thin deposits
don't actually need fracking, per se. They just need the super accurate aimable drilling tips
America now produces.
The kicker - on the economics - is that such thin deposits are extensive. So if you punch down
- you are sure to hit the strata - to strike oil - about 100% of the time. Your only risk is if
this or that effort is not quite what you hoped for.
Such resource economics are entirely upside down from conventional drilling. They strongly
resemble the economics of coal mining. Everybody is uniformly 'lucky.'
The total amount of 'thin strata' oil in the ground is staggeringly larger than all conventional
deposits. The Saudi royals know this. The general public does not.
It's against the economic interests of any of the players to level with the press or the public.
Everybody is lying about everything to everybody else. This behavior is classic - typical of mining
everywhere. When was the last time you heard a gold miner telling all where he'd found a massive
strike ?
Why does the US need to be in the Middle East at all. We can just buy oil from the lowest cost
supplier and have it shipped over. What am I missing here?
Contracting fraud, where the real money is made. It was never about oil, just contracts
and egos. Oil has to be sold at an honest price for a variety of reasons, but I can't judge a
cruise missile's price behind a veil of secrecy.
Heck if we wanted to we wouldn't even have to ship it over. What's the fun in that though?
Yay, capitalism where no one ever gets to lift the stupid veil!
Then there is the natural failing of leaders domestically who search for scapegoats. Half
of the foreign policy pronouncements are full of whispered hisses of "China." Don't pay attention
to me. It's those red Chinese and their currency manipulation.
It's not that much different than medieval kings who blamed jews for the ills of society. Oh
sure, we have tablets and Facebook, but we are still the same people after all these years.
The currency manipulation thing always makes me laugh. Good Lord, what do they think the Fed
does when it lowers and increases interest rates and what QE did to the dollar?
People WANT a scapegoat though. They want to believe that it's someone else's fault. Our domestic
leaders are giving the people what they want, a culpable body, when playing the blame game.
The Russian expeditionary force in Syria is indeed highly vulnerable, but only if the Western
Bloc wants to risk a major war. Now the Western Bloc can prevail against Russia, at any level
of escalation, albeit at mounting risk. Nobody should expect today's Russia to be able to match
the might of the Western Bloc.
But the Russian government indicates that they are willing to go to war, even if they know
in advance that they will lose that war. Willingness to lose means willingness to fight, and the
willingness to fight is a crucial element in deterrence.
In both Georgia and Ukraine, the Russians have physically demonstrated their willingness to
go to war wherever NATO tries to expand into any more of the former Soviet republics. There is
no question of Russian credibility as far as NATO expansion into former SR's is concerned. That
means war, period.
Syria's importance to Russia lies in the fact that it's Russia's only ally that is not territorially
contiguous to Russia. If Russia is to retain any real sovereign capacity to make or preserve meaningful
alliances abroad, then they must support the Syrian government, even if a military deployment
there is precarious.
Russia was very slow to engage in direct intervention in Syria. For years, Russia confined
its efforts to political support, technical advice, and resupply of the existing Syrian arsenal.
Russia even disarmed Syria of its chemical weapons, in a failed effort to mediate the conflict.
However, Russia's long reluctance also means that their current action is long-considered.
A government that is slow to go to war is usually a government that will fight hard in that war.
I expect the Western Bloc will presume that they can prevail through politico-economic
attrition against Russia. They probably can. However, the longer this complex regional war in
the Middle East continues, the more likely things are to veer off unpredictably. The real
God of war is neither Athena nor Mars. It's Tyche.
Patrick Smith wrote an interesting article that was published in Salon on October 6th, I recommend
it as worthwhile reading and food for thought. An extract:
… "In my read, Russia and Iran have just popped open the door to a solution in Syria. All
the pieces are in place but one: Washington's capacity to acknowledge the strategic failure now
so evident and to see beyond the narrowest definition of where its interests lie. This brings
us to the paradox embedded in those questions Putin and Zarif and a few others now pose: American
primacy is no longer in America's interest. Get your mind around this and you have arrived in
the 21st century."
"The CIA began a covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition
to Assad. Over that time, the CIA has trained an estimated 10,000 fighters, although the number
still fighting with so-called moderate forces is unclear.
The effort was separate from the one run by the military, which trained militants willing to
promise to take on IS exclusively. That program was widely considered a failure, and on Friday,
the Defense Department announced it was abandoning the goal of a U.S.-trained Syrian force, instead
opting to equip established groups to fight IS."
Even this AP story is largely inaccurate. The CIA had been active even before 2013. It's original
proxy army went rogue and is the cadre for al Baghdadi's ISIS horror show. ONLY NOW is the MSM
breaking the story that is idiot obvious across the Middle East. ZeroHedge is comparing this to
Bay of Pigs II.
No kidding -- Both involved CIA proxy armies that had no operational security to speak of.
Both were authorized by the Oval Office. And we know how much BHO admires JFK.
This article's quotes from various foreign quarters are informative, but its characterization
of American strategy is a bit "breathless."
The US maintained a fairly hands off approach to Syria over the past few years on the advice
of Israel. In essence, the US didn't have a dog in that fight, and the general intention was to
allow the regime and its enemies to weaken each other interminably.
Obama's empty threats about chemical weapons were a mistake, of course. But the Russians helped
him out of that one. And in some way, they are helping him out again. The blitzkrieg success of
Sunni/ISIS took observers by surprise, and all those gruesome beheadings seem to call for something.
But again where is the real strategic value of Syria? Every sensible Syrian who can is on his
way to a new life in Europe.
While the article's author seems to wish to ridicule him, Brzezinski is right. The US has stupendous
firepower, more than the rest of the world combined. But as we have seen, that does not guarantee
success in every situation, and is hardly effective if half-hearted.
By the way, the Israelis could "take out" Assad any time they wish to. They could as well probably
cripple the Russian force in Syria in a day, if they chose. But they do not prefer the consequences.
It is important to get Russian viewpoint especially since most Americans are monolingual.
Also, it is hard for us not to root for the home team. Still Syria is a gigantic SNAFU. It is
so far beyond incompetence it has to be purposeful. This is the ultimate expression of the Shock
Doctrine. Collapse Russia and gain control its energy resources at the risk of exterminating
Homo sapiens. Russia will do well for a while carving out enclaves for the minority Shiites, Christians
and Alawites then they will in a tough slog of fighting Sunni Arabs in a regional Holy War.
There are 1.6 billion Sunni Muslims. Want-to-be Jihadists will flock to Syria to fight
the Russian Crusaders. Barrack Obama has already warned Vladimir Putin of a quagmire. His continued
arming the Sunnis is a purposeful act to ensure this. World War III starts when Russia shoots
down an American aircraft on a combat mission over Syria.
Give the Russians some credit for finesse. All they need do is shoot down an Israeli jet
attacking a Syrian government position in support of some Syrian "Moderates" near Damascus. I'll
be watching for a Russian campaign to rid the Syrian skies of 'Western' drones. That would be
a sign of serious intentions on the part of Russia.
Another possibility is a peaceful change of leadership within Assad's Syrian government. Does
anyone know if there is a suitable successor to Assad Jr. in the 'family?' Such an event would
remove even the fig leaf presently being waved in front of the West's attempted rape of Syria.
So I was hoping that the Russians would go in there and kill ISIS and then they turn around
and start killing the rebels trying to kill Assad, who ISIS wouldn't mind killing as well. So
much for wishful thinking which last I noted hasn't worked well in war except when called dumb
luck, which is fortunate weather events never anticipated by anyone.
Well it sort of makes sense that if you have an enemy with an army and they threaten you, enough,
you kill them. Unfortunately for allies of the US, it doesn't really matter that much for the
US long as the Petrodollar, the gift of Nixon and Kissinger is the reserve currency. If all the
Syrian draft dodgers go to Germany, well that will serve Volkswagen right, not to mention make
Greece and Hungary thinking so while any minute I'll look good telling the Netherlands to go for
it with my Insurodollar.
Well it sure did work out well about that Euro. And things would be great if it was actually
oil coming from the 3,900 drill rigs, if it was oil instead of leaky ass methane wrecking the
climate even more than oil getting burned things would be better. A 4,000 dollar CNG gas tank
that takes up the trunk makes batteries look good.
But who knows what all since piddling around has halfway or a third worked out, so far.
It's not how many nukes you have, but who uses them first, if you have them see. They didn't
really have them till the end of the second world war, which was a war, still, and why I call
what's in store next for us an apocalyptic riot.
If only capitalism was working and Russia was just offered a land transit corridor for a price
to Sevastopol? So what if they get to access more better in the Black Sea, It's Black right?
Remember the Zaporizia! Remember that Hunter Biden! Remember Antares! Remember Christophe de
Margerie and the drunk that got there just in time for a plane that never crashes except for the
other one that was shot down! And remember thinking too much, since what you know is lots of lies,
and the rest is cowardly, or stupid.
This is a very dangerous gambit for Russia. The USA and allies represents overwhelmingly
stronger alliance economically, politically and technologically.
Notable quotes:
"... And finally, overall
tribalism and chaos in the region helps the US, and particularly Israel gain strength in the region
by weakening neighbors, ..."
"... We will see fewer conventional offensives
in the future, and far more localized attacks, the Pentagon will try and create another Afghanistan ..."
"... While US military doctrine these days is set to avoid direct confrontation, on the other
hand America and citizens in the West have been primed for it. Consider that most Americans, have
been brainwashed substantially to believe Vladimir Putin has already invaded half a dozen countries.
As crazy as this sounds, pretend you live in small American town and you listen to CNN or Fox before
bed every night. This potential, to be dragged into a wide conflagration set up by Washington, is
why you see Vladimir Putin making very conservative and precise moves on the stage, he told Sputnik. ..."
"... given all we have seen since 9/11, it would take a fairly major incident
to excuse such a confrontation ..."
In September 2014, Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA intelligence analyst, proposed a plan entitled
"An Army to Defeat Assad." The CIA analyst envisaged the creation of a US Syrian proxy army that
would take over the Syrian government forces (and deal a blow to Islamic State). However, the toppling
of Bashar al-Assad was marked by Pollack as the overriding priority.
"Once the new army gained ground, the opposition's leaders could formally declare themselves
to represent a new provisional government. The United States and its allies could then extend
diplomatic recognition to the movement, allowing the US Department of Defense to take over the
tasks of training and advising the new force – which would now be the official military arm of
Syria's legitimate new rulers," Pollack elaborated.
In January 2015, the Pentagon announced that it kicked off a plan aimed at training Assad's opposition
fighters, strikingly similar to that offered by Pollack in September 2014. So, nothing hinted at
any trouble until September 30, when Russia suddenly threw a wrench in Washington's ingenious plan.
"To get to the root of the current crisis in Syria and the Middle East overall, we must look
at US policy overall," Germany-based American political analyst Phil Butler explained in an exclusive
interview to Sputnik.
"The current divisions within Syria and Northern Iraq are to a degree fabricated. Secular,
religious, and even tribal differences in this region have been leveraged for centuries to divide
Syria, as well as other nations in the region. You've mentioned Ken Pollack, and appropriately,
I might add. Pollack, who's held many official positions within the Washington policy making establishment,
is actually one of the authors of chaos in this region. Discussing such "bred" academics is a
deep well, but suffice it to say the division of Yugoslavia, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
the Arab Spring overall, the Georgia war, and the current Ukraine mess are all facets of the same
flawed gem of US hegemony," the analyst told Sputnik.
According to Butler, the current mission in Syria is not intended to be a splintering as we saw
with Kosovo, in the Balkans.
"As for the 'plan' in Syria, I believe there were 'contingencies' mapped out. As amoral as
these schemes may be, they are not concocted by idiots. Contingency 1, in my view, was the literal
overthrow of Assad. Vladimir Putin's moves, Russia's, have thwarted this potential at every turn.
Contingency number two obviously involves another Yugoslavia in the making. And finally, overall
tribalism and chaos in the region helps the US, and particularly Israel gain strength in the region
by weakening neighbors," the political analyst stressed.
Meanwhile, Western reputable media sources have reported of an upcoming offensive on Raqqa, ISIL's
"capital," the Pentagon is preparing to launch along with its Arab and Kurdish military allies.
However, Middle East Eye reported on October 14 that there is no sign of such preparations on
the ground: "The US-led anti-IS coalition dropped 50 tons of weapons to the newly created Syrian
Arab Coalition on Monday in the Hasakah province, in order to avoid angering Turkey. But so far,
no US weapons can be seen on the frontlines close to Raqqa, nor any sign of rebel troop preparations."
"The reason we have not seen these latest weapons shipments being used, is the complexity of strategy
on the ground has changed. No standing force, Al-Nusra, ISIL, or other jihadists put together, could
withstand Russian air power. I believe we are about to see Assad's opposition morph their strategy
to full guerrilla warfare as was the case in Afghanistan. We will see fewer conventional "offensives"
in the future, and far more localized attacks, the Pentagon will try and create another Afghanistan,"
Butler explained commenting on the issue.
However, in contrast to the US' covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan, there were no US jet
fighters in the region and thus far, no threat of a direct confrontation between the two global powers.
Today, there are many military "actors" in the skies of Syria and Iraq. Does it mean the Pentagon's
Afghani strategy may unexpectedly transform into a direct confrontation between US/NATO and Russia?
"As for the threat of direct confrontation between the US and Russia in Syria, the possibility does
exist. In this case however, I believe such a confrontation is actually another contingency for Washington,"
the American political analyst underscored.
"While US military doctrine these days is set to avoid direct confrontation, on the other
hand America and citizens in the "West" have been primed for it. Consider that most Americans, have
been brainwashed substantially to believe Vladimir Putin has already invaded half a dozen countries.
As crazy as this sounds, pretend you live in small American town and you listen to CNN or Fox before
bed every night. This potential, to be dragged into a wide conflagration set up by Washington, is
why you see Vladimir Putin making very conservative and precise moves on the stage," he told Sputnik.
"Having said this, given all we have seen since 9/11, it would take a fairly major incident
to excuse such a confrontation," Phil Butler concluded.
After failing to set new Afghanistan for Russia in Ukraine, it looks like Syria is on the mind
of Washington strategists as a suitable replacement. The problem is that ground forces are not
Russian.
"... From one fiasco to another: Washington has failed to change the regime in
Syria, failed to effectively fight ISIS, and now wants Russia to fail. At
the same time, Obama appears to be willing to arm any anti-regime fighter
who can carry a gun. What could possibly go wrong with that? ..."
From one fiasco to another: Washington has failed to change the regime in
Syria, failed to effectively fight ISIS, and now wants Russia to fail. At
the same time, Obama appears to be willing to arm any anti-regime fighter
who can carry a gun. What could possibly go wrong with that?
CrossTalking with Philippe Assouline, Marcus Papadopoulos, and Roshan
Muhammed Salih.
"... The professor noted that some analysts are convinced that Vladimir Putin is about to sell out
Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in return for Syria. According to Cohen, it is naïve to believe that
Moscow would give up ethnic Russians suffering from Kiev's hostilities in return for protecting
Assad ..."
"... [Ukrainian authorities are worried] that Washington may kind of forget Ukraine or lessen
its commitment to the Kiev government. So, I would not be surprised if Kiev stages a
provocation to inflame the crisis which is at a very low level at the moment in Ukraine, ..."
"... if Washington continues to indulge the neocons' plan
to arm Ukraine and encourage Kiev's warmongering against Russia, the United States will finally
face an equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Eastern Europe. ..."
"My hope is that [US President] Obama and [Russian President] Putin will rise above themselves
and form a substantial coalition in Iraq and in Syria. But let's be realistic… There are enormous
obstacles," Professor Cohen noted in an interview with US progressive political commentator
Thomas Carl "Thom" Hartmann.
The professor noted that some analysts are convinced that Vladimir Putin is about to sell out
Donbass, eastern Ukraine, in return for Syria. According to Cohen, it is naïve to believe that
Moscow would give up ethnic Russians suffering from Kiev's hostilities in return for protecting
Assad. "That won't happen," the professor underscored.
... ... ...
"It [the Ukrainian crisis] could flare up at any moment in a way that could disrupt any
fragile agreement between Putin and Obama," the professor stressed.
According to Cohen, the US-backed regime in Kiev is sweating bullets about the possibility of
close cooperation between Moscow and Washington in the Middle East.
"[Ukrainian authorities are worried] that Washington may kind of forget Ukraine or lessen
its commitment to the Kiev government. So, I would not be surprised if Kiev stages a
provocation to inflame the crisis which is at a very low level at the moment in Ukraine,"
Cohen warned.
Meanwhile, the grim specter of World War III is prowling across Europe and the Middle East.
Professor Cohen has repeatedly stressed that if Washington continues to indulge the neocons' plan
to arm Ukraine and encourage Kiev's warmongering against Russia, the United States will finally
face an equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Eastern Europe.
"... Huge amounts of money were spread around in it, and not just those Nuland cookies ... Its main
participants were outcasts from across the country, who, in fact, had nothing to lose. The
outcasts very much wanted to take the property not just from Donetskis , but also from Kievskis ,
Lvivskis , Rivnenskis and others, wrote, in particular, the author of the scientific
publication. ..."
"... Today, the population of Donbass en masse is being
systematically, and brutally destroyed by the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine,
including through means and methods of warfare that are prohibited by international law ..."
"Today, the population of Donbass en masse is being systematically, and brutally
destroyed by the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine, including through means
and methods of warfare that are prohibited by international law," - wrote A. Lopata.
... ... ...
According to the scientist, this revolution was nothing more than a coup.
"Huge amounts of money were spread around in it, and not just those Nuland cookies ... Its main
participants were outcasts from across the country, who, in fact, had nothing to lose. The
outcasts very much wanted to take the property not just from "Donetskis", but also from "Kievskis",
"Lvivskis", "Rivnenskis" and others," wrote, in particular, the author of the scientific
publication.
In addition, Lopata qualified the war in the Donbass as the genocide of the people in the east of
the country by the army of Ukraine. "Today, the population of Donbass en masse is being
systematically, and brutally destroyed by the Armed Forces and the National Guard of Ukraine,
including through means and methods of warfare that are prohibited by international law," - wrote
A. Lopata.
The author also points out that "the authorities of the country have made a decision to urgently
direct the entire Maidan "fuel" material to Eastern Ukraine;" and that "there is no aggression of
Russia against Ukraine, but instead there is a US war with Russia in Donbass "to the last
Ukrainian."
This is how neocolonialism works: "global village' wants to move to "global town", while global
town mercilessly exploits it.
Notable quotes:
"... There is also an important factor: several million Ukrainians work in Russia and in Europe. Comparing,
they see that life in the European Union is more comfortable. And this also affects their geopolitical
preferences . Finally, most of the residents of Ukraine, especially in the center and the west of
the country perceived the reunion of the Crimea with the Russian Federation as an occupation of part
of their country. And in relation to the events in Donbass the propaganda has convinced many people
that it was not a rebellion against the new regime in Kiev, but Russia's aggression. Unfortunately,
revanchist sentiments towards our country in Ukraine can last for a long time. I would even say that
it is impossible to exclude the possibility of war between Russia and Ukraine. At least today it
is bigger than zero. And even 2 years ago this assumption might seem an absurd fantasy. ..."
"... Yes, there are still strong illusions of average Ukrainians in relation to Europe. Many people
think that joining the EU and NATO would quickly help Ukraine improve the living standards of the
population, to solve social problems and so on. Others, more realistically minded Ukrainians, think
like this: yes, we know that Europe will not solve our problems, but we have no other choice. Now,
Russia, if not an enemy, is at least an unfriendly state. And they do not believe in the economic
prospects of the alliance with us. ..."
"... public consciousness in Ukraine is largely irrational. Ive already talked
about the persisting illusions of Ukrainian men from the street. It seems to him that only the West
is able to protect Ukraine from the Russian aggression . This explains such a persistent and irrational
focus on Europe. ..."
"... it seems to me that the real percentage of Ukrainians who
are in favor of strengthening cooperation with Russia on the territories controlled by Kiev is
not much higher than what was revealed by the survey. ..."
Most citizens of "independent" Ukraine are disappointed with Maidan, but they still believe in
Europe
The public consciousness in Ukraine continues to amaze with its irrationality. This is confirmed
by the poll conducted by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).
Despite the fact that the majority of Ukrainians acknowledge that Euromaidan did not meet their
expectations, a dominant sentiment in Ukraine is in favor of the pro-Western geopolitical course.
49% of respondents are of the opinion that Ukraine should better strive to deepen relations with
Europe, while the percentage of those who prefer a closer relationship with Russia is only 8%.
At the same time 56% of Ukrainians believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction,
and only 20% hold the opposite opinion. The notion that the country is moving in the wrong direction
is spread across the country and is shared by the majority of citizens in each region.
The survey was conducted on the territory of Ukraine, controlled by the Kiev government, without
regard to the views of some four million people living in the LPR and the DPR.
It would seem that in the last eighteen months Europe has demonstrated that it is in no hurry
to recognize Ukraine as its "own". Western aid is given precisely in those volumes that prevent the
final collapse of Ukraine's statehood. At the same time, due to the influx of Western goods and severance
of economic ties with Russia hundreds of Ukrainian enterprises are closed. The latest news in this
regard: in Ukraine it has become unprofitable to produce even sugar leading to the closing of 15
sugar mills.
The situation in the post-Maidan economy of Ukraine is much worse, however it has not affected
the unrequited love of Ukrainians to the West. Why is this the case and what will be the outcome?
- We must understand that the process of Ukraine's reorientation to the West began long before
the Maidan, - says the Head of the Center for Political Research of the Institute of Economics,
Head of the Department of International Relations of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation
Boris Shmelev. - For a quarter century that has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
more than one generation of Ukrainians has grown who are convinced that it is necessary not to be
friends with Russia, but with Europe. That only this friendship with the West will ensure the prosperity
of Ukraine.
There is also an important factor: several million Ukrainians work in Russia and in Europe. Comparing,
they see that life in the European Union is more comfortable. And this also affects their "geopolitical
preferences". Finally, most of the residents of Ukraine, especially in the center and the west of
the country perceived the reunion of the Crimea with the Russian Federation as an occupation of part
of their country. And in relation to the events in Donbass the propaganda has convinced many people
that it was not a rebellion against the new regime in Kiev, but Russia's aggression. Unfortunately,
revanchist sentiments towards our country in Ukraine can last for a long time. I would even say that
it is impossible to exclude the possibility of war between Russia and Ukraine. At least today it
is bigger than zero. And even 2 years ago this assumption might seem an absurd fantasy.
"SP": - Why a year and a half since the "February coup" have not convinced Ukrainians that
the EU is not going to make Ukraine a member state and that the West is helping Kiev only to the
extent that the pro-Western regime does not collapse?
- Yes, there are still strong illusions of average Ukrainians in relation to Europe. Many people
think that joining the EU and NATO would quickly help Ukraine improve the living standards of the
population, to solve social problems and so on. Others, more realistically minded Ukrainians, think
like this: yes, we know that Europe will not solve our problems, but we have no other choice. Now,
Russia, if not an enemy, is at least an unfriendly state. And they do not believe in the economic
prospects of the alliance with us.
"SP": - But it is impossible to escape the logic: as long as Ukraine maintained relatively
good relations with Russia, the situation in the Ukrainian economy was more or less tolerable. And
as soon as Kiev finally turned towards the West, the economy began to crumble ...
- All this is true. But public consciousness in Ukraine is largely irrational. I've already talked
about the persisting illusions of Ukrainian men from the street. It seems to him that only the West
is able to protect Ukraine from the "Russian aggression". This explains such a persistent and irrational
focus on Europe.
"SP": - And can we explain such a low percentage of Russian sympathizers by the fact that some
respondents, especially in the South-East of Ukraine are afraid to openly express their opinions?
- Yes, it is possible. Although, it seems to me that the real percentage of Ukrainians who
are in favor of strengthening cooperation with Russia on the territories controlled by Kiev is
not much higher than what was revealed by the survey.
"... if you can explain any single interest of Russia to
destroy civilian plane and kill 300 innocent people to gain public support from world, then I
am curious to know it; sure, in totally crazy scenario, somebody can orchestrate it all and
motivate somebody to target 777 by mistake or there can be some special services for false
flag, but I am sure that this is absolutely risky business with the same bad PR as first
case; far more, I can imagine, that somebody stupid tried to modulate it upon MH370 case media
wave while escalating warfare and hate of somebody else; truth will be known, soon or later,
be sure ..."
In October, the BUK manufacturer conducted a second full-scale experiment using the missile
and a decommissioned Ilyushin Il-86 passenger airliner. The simulation of the attack on the
Boeing "unequivocally proved that if the plane was brought down by a BUK system, it was done with
an outdated 9M38 missile from the village of Zaroshchenskoye," in Ukrainian military-controlled
territory.
The company also said that the last missile of this type was produced in the Soviet Union in
1986, that its life span is 25 years including all prolongations, and that all missiles of this
type were decommissioned from the Russian Army in 2011.
According to Almaz-Antey experts, the Dutch side does not explain why the investigation insists
that the possible launch of the surface-to-air missile was executed from the settlement of
Snezhnoye, controlled by rebel forces.
A missile launched from Snezhnoye could not have inflicted damage to Boeing's left side and not a
single element would have hit the aircraft's left wing and engine, insist the Almaz-Antey
experts.
... ... ...
The main proof that the aircraft was shot down from the direction of Snezhnoye was [the Dutch
commission's] modeling of that process and interpretation of the damage to the fuselage. It does
provide a quite visual imagery of how a missile on a head-on course could damage certain areas,
yet this kind of modeling does not explain at all the real-incidence angles of striking elements
[hitting the aircraft]," Novikov said.
Analysis of the photos of MH17 debris led the company's experts to believe that the blast of the
warhead damaged not only the cockpit of the Boeing 777 that crashed in Ukraine, but also the left
wing and stabilizer.
The detonation of the missile occurred at a distance of more than 20 meters from the left-wing
engine and most of the strike elements were moving along the fuselage of the aircraft.
... ... ...
The left wing and stabilizer also bear traces of damage, the size of which provides an
opportunity to define them as inflicted by the strike elements of a BUK missile complex," adviser
of the general constructor of Almaz-Antey, Mikhail Malyshevsky, said.
The Almaz-Antey experts paid special attention to the fact that some of the damage registered on
the MH17 debris was caused by disruption of the aircraft's structural components and not by the
striking elements of the missile.
The experts of Almaz-Antey also said that Ukraine possesses 9M38 missiles, but fell short of
accusing either the Kiev authorities or the rebels in the east of Ukraine of causing the
catastrophe.
... ... ...
Simultaneously with the investigation of the Dutch Safety Board, the Dutch prosecutor's office
is conducting a separate criminal investigation of its own aimed at establishing the perpetrators
of the attack on passenger aircraft.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 flight MH17 passenger aircraft left from Amsterdam to the
Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The airliner was shot down and fell to Earth
over the Donetsk Region in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people, 283 passengers and 15 crew, on board
were killed. There were 80 children among the passengers. Most, 193 people, were Dutch nationals;
altogether the airliner was carrying citizens from 10 countries.
djajakondomis 4 days ago 06:12
As I said. Just read the report and supplements! The specified area consists mainly out of
Rebel area...
Almaz-Antei director Yan Novikov was involved during the investigation. There were even
three main/big meetings, and every meeting took three days!
At the second meeting Almaz-Antei director Yan Novikov even presented the 9N314M warhead
himself. The investigation team was even happy that there was consensus. On the third meeting
Yan Novikov suddenly said; well, it was only an example we presented.
However, based for instance on the butterfly shape, the whole research team (of all
countries) were convinced it was a 9N314M warhead, except suddenly the Russian delegation.
This investigation was based on the parts found within the bodies!! Not something found on
the ground or whatsoever...
Read the report!
Sergio Teixeira 4 days ago 02:05
hanspy
Show me the video from the blast and ad a speed of let us say 2000 kmh from the
rocket(probably
higher speed) plus 700 kmh from the plane and tell me than again how it looks. A blast
with zero kmh speed looks totally different than a blast patron with 2700kmh or more. You
Russians know exactly who did it and with what rocket and from where. So stop playing
around and start to be real journalists and not some propaganda machine from Putin or
Almaz-Antey .
next they will say Sadam did it.
Sergio Teixeira 4 days ago 02:04
Af Veth
Whatever, anyway Russian Forces downed MH17. Thats was it counting.
not Russian but CIA to justify they needs.
Sergio Teixeira 4 days ago 02:03
Message deleted
EU is slave from USA
vladffff 4 days ago 01:03
Took these rats 1 year to find this out?
alrobigglesworth 5 days ago 21:01
"[Almaz-Antey] added that among the materials received and examined by their experts
were heavy fraction sub munitions, which only the older 9M38M1 missile modification is
equipped with."
That's a direct quote from the RT article from June 2015 regarding Almaz-Antey's first
test.
alrobigglesworth 5 days ago 20:32
After their first "experiment" in June, Almaz-Antey said that "If a surface-to-air missile
system was used [to hit the plane], it could only have been a 9M38M1 missile of the BUK-M1
system." Why is he changing his story, especially now that the Dutch Safety Board reached the
same conclusion? Seems fishy.
Petr Antoš 5 days ago 17:45
hanspy
Show me the video from the blast and ad a speed of let us say 2000 kmh from the
rocket(probablymore...
ummm, ok, they even offered to buy old 777 a let it be downed while flying on AP over
military area to proof their analysis; if you can explain any single interest of Russia to
destroy civilian plane and kill 300 innocent people to gain public support from world, then I
am curious to know it; sure, in totally crazy scenario, somebody can orchestrate it all and
motivate somebody to target 777 by mistake or there can be some special services for false
flag, but I am sure that this is absolutelly risky business with the same bad PR as first
case; far more, I can imagine, that somebody stupid tried to modulate it upon MH370 case media
wave while escalating warfare and hate of somebody else; truth will be known, soon or later,
be sure
hanspy 5 days ago 17:28
Show me the video from the blast and ad a speed of let us say 2000 kmh from the
rocket(probably higher speed) plus 700 kmh from the plane and tell me than again how it looks.
A blast with zero kmh speed looks totally different than a blast patron with 2700kmh or more.
You Russians know exactly who did it and with what rocket and from where. So stop playing
around and start to be real journalists and not some propaganda machine from Putin or
Almaz-Antey .
Norma Brown 5 days ago 15:04
this is a good result for Russia, as the only government involved that can be sued for
criminal stupidity is Kiev, for allowing the flight into a war zone.
After MH17 was shot done all intelligence services of NATO (with a lot of high tech) as well as
Ukrainian SBU (with a lot of people on the ground; enough to monitor all major roads) were on alert.
So the hypothesis that they were unable to locate the launch platform is a very weak hypothesis. It
was next to impossible for rebels to move it from Snizhne to, say, Russia. This is a serious problem
with version that it was BUK, unless it was a Ukrainian BUK.
Looks like Snizhne was pushed as a smoke screen to deflect attention from Ukrainians.
Notable quotes:
"... The US release of this illustration (below) of the area lacks resolution
and scale, so no launcher can be seen. The firing location and the green line
of trajectory are unverified guesswork. The US has not presented evidence that
on July 17 a Buk-M1 battery was in Snizhne. ..."
"... the Russian evidence
for a Ukrainian military launcher at Zaroshchenske puts the distance between
this pre-firing location and the purported Snizhne launch position at less than
25 kilometres. ..."
Russian generals Andrei Kartapolov (Army) and Igor Makushev (Air Force)
have presented
satellite pictures showing that on or before July 17 the Ukrainian military
moved at least three Buk-M1 missile batteries – comprising a tracked launcher
and a target acquisition radar van – out of their depot north of Donetsk, and
into positions, all of which were within 30 kilometres of the Boeing's flight
path; the SA-11's range is 30 kilometres. One unit in particular was
photographed at the village of Zaroshchenske, south of the bigger settlement of
Shakhtarsk, and south of the main road H21. This position is about 15
kilometres from the M17 flight path and from the impact site.
The Russian
location evidence can be seen on this Google map:
The US release of this illustration (below) of the area lacks resolution
and scale, so no launcher can be seen. The firing location and the green line
of trajectory are unverified guesswork. The US has not presented evidence that
on July 17 a Buk-M1 battery was in Snizhne. But the Russian evidence
for a Ukrainian military launcher at Zaroshchenske puts the distance between
this pre-firing location and the purported Snizhne launch position at less than
25 kilometres. There is also a gap of several hours between the time of
the Russian photograph and the confirmed firing time at 1720. Between the two
locations, highway H21 would allow a mobile launcher unit and radar van to
redeploy within 45 to 60 minutes.
The Russian radar tracks identify the presence of a small Ukrainian aircraft
with Su-25 identifiers on the Boeing flight path, and within range of the
ground missile launcher within minutes of the shoot-down. The US intelligence
briefing neither confirms nor denies the presence in the air of the Su-25; no
US satellite or radar records have been released to corroborate the point.
Instead, the US briefing denies the Su-25 fired rockets at the Boeing.
Responding to the Russian radar presentation, President Petro Poroshenko
told CNN the presentation was the "irresponsible and false statement of the
Russian [defense] minister". Poroshenko appeared not to be familiar with the
Russian radar evidence. He said: "When the Russian [Defense] ministry makes
such a statement, it must provide proof. The sky over Ukraine is monitored by
many satellites and air defense systems. Everyone knows that all Ukrainian
planes were on the ground several hundred kilometres away [from the crash site]
"... The Syrian government maintains a commitment to a strong welfare state, for example ensuring
universal access to healthcare (in which area its performance has been impressive) and providing
free education at all levels. It has a long-established policy of secularism and multiculturalism,
protecting and celebrating its religious and ethnic diversity and refusing to tolerate sectarian
hatred …" ..."
"... Yes, Walter Cronkite remarked in his autobiography on the harmonious secularism of Syria
from an actual visit, in which he said he noted various religious denominations living in
one another's neighbourhoods with no apparent religious acrimony or intolerance at all.
..."
"... The USA is determined to get control of the gas supply to Europe because it perceives that
Russia has too much influence there because of said supply, as well as the popular trope
that Russia has nothing but oil and gas and if the USA could capture their markets, they'd
be paupers in a year. ..."
"... 12 headline stories listed. None about the Ukraine, MH17 and Syria. ..."
"... Parubiy, who founded the Social National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok (the current
leader of the far-right Svoboda party), will be speaking at RUSI whilst visiting London. ..."
"... I remain convinced that the army of humanitarian interventionists fetishise 'democracy promotion'
abroad largely to avoid looking at how it's playing out at home. ..."
" … The new constitution introduced a multi-party political system in the sense that
the eligibility of political parties to participate isn't based on the discretionary permission
of the Baath party or on reservations rather on a constitutional criteria.
As such, the new constitution forbids political parties that are based on religion, sect
or ethnicity, or which are inherently discriminatory towards one's gender or race (2012:
Art.8) – this means the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is still banned.
What hasn't changed is the constitutional requirement that half the People's Council
be comprised of 'workers and peasants' (1973: Art.53 | 2012: Art.60), which in practice
means that the ballot paper contains two lists, one with candidates who qualify as 'workers
and peasants', and another one with other candidates …
… The Baath party no longer enjoys constitutional privilege. Presidential elections are
contested between multiple candidates, and are no longer referendums seeking the electorate's
binary (yes or no) approval for the Baath party's internally nominated candidate.
The participation of political parties is based on an objective constitutional criteria
[sic], not on the arbitrary powers of the executive to permit or exclude them.
Finally, the Supreme Constitutional Court is significantly more independent."
Another interesting article on Syria, this one by Carlos Martinez in 2013:
" … In the words of its president, Syria is "an independent state working for the interests
of its people, rather than making the Syrian people work for the interests of the West."
For over half a century, it has stubbornly refused to play by the rules of imperialism and
neoliberalism … [In] spite of some limited market reforms of recent years, "the Ba'athist
state has always exercised considerable influence over the Syrian economy, through ownership
of enterprises, subsidies to privately-owned domestic firms, limits on foreign investment,
and restrictions on imports. These are the necessary economic tools of a post-colonial state
trying to wrest its economic life from the grips of former colonial powers and to chart
a course of development free from the domination of foreign interests."
The Syrian government maintains a commitment to a strong welfare state, for example ensuring
universal access to healthcare (in which area its performance has been impressive) and providing
free education at all levels. It has a long-established policy of secularism and multiculturalism,
protecting and celebrating its religious and ethnic diversity and refusing to tolerate sectarian
hatred …"
So in other words, there is now no longer any justification for the US-led overthrow
of Bashar al Assad because he is a "dictator".
Yes, Walter Cronkite remarked in his autobiography on the harmonious secularism of Syria
from an actual visit, in which he said he noted various religious denominations living in
one another's neighbourhoods with no apparent religious acrimony or intolerance at all.
I have suggested before that Assad doomed himself when he refused Qatar's offer to run a
gas pipeline across Syria and so to Turkey and Europe, for the expressed reason that he
would not stab Russia in the back, and double-doomed himself when he accepted a similar
offer from Iran, with whom Russia has no issues because it is not under American control.
The USA is determined to get control of the gas supply to Europe because it perceives that
Russia has too much influence there because of said supply, as well as the popular trope
that Russia has nothing but oil and gas and if the USA could capture their markets, they'd
be paupers in a year.
Unbeknown to Western know-nothings about matters Russian, very many Russians are well aware
of the lies spewed out by the Western mass media: the same cannot be said of Westerners and their
knowledge of what Russians read in their media.
I notice that in the British lying rags, the Ukraine has been pushed off the front page, as
has the MH17 story and now Syria is being shunted to the sidelines.
Nothing to see here! Move along now!
In today's Telegraph, a German big-game hunter's shooting of a massive bull elephant overrides
a Syria story on the front online page. MH17 and the Ukraine gets no mention at all.
Today's headlines:
Scenes of devastation as huge mudslide strikes California leaving thousands stranded
Hatton Garden raider 'shows police where he hid jewels'
'Half empty' private jets carry failed asylum seekers home
SNP accused of 'happy clappy smothering' of second Scottish independence referendum debate
Pc Dave Phillips murder: two women and a man charged with assisting offender
12 headline stories listed. None about the Ukraine, MH17 and Syria.
Parubiy, who founded the Social National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok (the current
leader of the far-right Svoboda party), will be speaking at RUSI whilst visiting London.
Всего в период с 1 апреля 2014 г. на территорию Российской Федерации въехало и не убыло по состоянию
на указанную дату 1 089 618 граждан юго-востока Украины.
Just in the period starting 1 April 2014, into the territory of the Russian Federation have
entered and not left as of a specified date 1,089,618 citizens of South-East Ukraine.
I remain convinced that the army of humanitarian interventionists fetishise 'democracy promotion'
abroad largely to avoid looking at how it's playing out at home.
Mark Adomanis became a turncoat and defected to the "dark side". Some problems for Russia are
given. Still it is pretty valiant attempt in view of the dominance of the USA in world economy
and, especially, finance. Also this is form of economic attack of EU: some European firms lost
Russian market "forever". So far American firms are fared better but Coca-cola, Pepsi, chicken
producers, and McDonalds might suffer.
Some very
intelligent people saw this coming a long way off, accurately predicting that heightened
tensions with America and the European Union would empower precisely those areas of the Russian
economy that the West wants to see weakened
... ... ...
From the second quarter of 2014 through the second quarter of 2015, the ruble value of
Russia's imports decreased by almost 30% (the ruble value of exports, meanwhile, actually
increased). That's actually not terribly surprising. When a currency depreciates as much as the
ruble has over the past year you would expect imports to take a significant hit.
But what has happened to domestic manufacturing? Has Russian business stepped into the space
vacated by Western goods that are no longer affordable to many Russian consumers?
So far, at least, the answer is a definite no. Official Rosstat data show that through the
first half of 2015, Russian manufacturing actually shrunk by about 2.8%. The only sectors of the
economy to show any growth were agriculture (up 2.4%), natural resource extraction (up 2.4%), and
public administration (up 0.7%). The areas of the Russian economy where private business
predominates, particularly consumer retail, have been absolutely walloped, with the overall
retail sector shrinking by almost 9% over the past six months.
... ... ...
Victor Lar 2 days ago
Russian Cheese Production Surges 30% After Ban on Western Imports: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russian-cheese-production-surges-30-after-ban-on-western-imports/521891.html
For some reason they investigate only version of surface to air missile. Possibility of air to air
missile was not investigated. Dutch reps could attend Almaz-Antey experiments and collect shrapnel from
them. They did not do this. Also they demonstrated provable negligence in collecting evidence (Ukraine
at this point was EU vassal state and one phone call from Brussel would exclude any shelling of the
area). The question why the plane was brought to the particular area was answered "to avoid thunderstorms".
I doubt that at this altitude they can affect the plane. All this points to a cover up of Ukrainian
false flag operation.
"... According to the DSB, "no unalloyed steel fragments were found in the remains of the passengers".
..."
"... 20 were found on analysis to include layers of aluminium or glass. The DSB's explanation is
that the external explosion of a missile warhead had propelled these fragments through the cockpit windows
and aluminium panels of the fuselage, fusing with the glass and aluminium before striking the three
crew members in the cockpit at the time. ..."
"... The DSB conclusion is that these fragments came from a missile warhead, but not conclusively
from a Buk missile warhead type 9N314M. The evidence for this Buk warhead comes, the DSB reports, from
4 – repeat four – fragments. ..."
"... Because Buk shrapnel is understood to have such cubic and bow-tie shapes, there are just four
fragments to substantiate it. If the autopsy evidence is regarded as the only source that could not
have been contaminated on the ground, or in the interval between the crash and the forensic testing
in The Netherlands, there are just three fragments which fit the Buk bill. ..."
"... By failing to identify the location of these parts, the finders, or the dates on which they
were sent to Holland, the DSB does not rule out that this evidence may have been fabricated. ..."
Eight pages of the DSB report – pages 88 to 95 - focus on the metal fragments. The number of these
starts at "over 500 recovered from the wreckage of the aeroplane, the remains of the crew members
and passengers." Many, apparently most, of these fragments turned out to be "personal belongings,
aeroplane parts or objects that originated from the ground after impact." According to the DSB, "many
were metal fragments that were suspected to be high-energy objects." Of these just 72 were investigated
further because they were "similar in size, mass and shape." 43 of this 72 were "found to be made
of unalloyed steel". The term "shrapnel" may be a synonym for "unalloyed steel fragments", but the
word doesn't appear at all in the DSB report. According to the DSB, "no unalloyed steel fragments
were found in the remains of the passengers".
Of the 43 steel fragments investigated thoroughly - all of them recovered from the bodies of the
cockpit crew or in the wreckage of the cockpit - 20 were found on analysis to include layers
of aluminium or glass. The DSB's explanation is that the external explosion of a missile warhead
had propelled these fragments through the cockpit windows and aluminium panels of the fuselage, fusing
with the glass and aluminium before striking the three crew members in the cockpit at the time.
The DSB conclusion is that these fragments came from a missile warhead, but not conclusively
from a Buk missile warhead type 9N314M. The evidence for this Buk warhead comes, the DSB reports,
from 4 – repeat four – fragments. These, "although heavily deformed and damaged, had distinctive
shapes; cubic and in the form of a bow-tie". The DSB's exact count is two cubic shapes, two bow-ties.
One bow-tie was recovered from the cockpit wreckage; one from the body of a cockpit crew member.
Both cubic fragments were found in the bodies of the crew members.
Because Buk shrapnel is understood to have such cubic and bow-tie shapes, there are just four
fragments to substantiate it. If the autopsy evidence is regarded as the only source that could not
have been contaminated on the ground, or in the interval between the crash and the forensic testing
in The Netherlands, there are just three fragments which fit the Buk bill.
In addition, the DSB says it has examined chemical residues of the warhead explosive, and paint
particles from the surface of missile parts reportedly recovered from the ground. Exactly where,
when, and by whom the purported missile parts were found the DSB does not identify. In Section 2:12:2:8
of the report, the DSB says that "during the recovery of the wreckage, a number of parts that did
not originate from the aeroplane and its content were found in the wreckage area. The parts found
appeared to be connected with a surface-to-air missile. The parts that were suspected to be related
to a surface-to-air missile were transported to the Gilze-Rijen Air Force Base [in The Netherlands;
also reported as the Hilversum Army Base] in the same way as the aeroplane wreckage was. On arrival
the parts underwent the same examination as the pieces of aeroplane wreckage." By failing to
identify the location of these parts, the finders, or the dates on which they were sent to Holland,
the DSB does not rule out that this evidence may have been fabricated. At page 53 the DSB admits
that "many pieces of the wreckage" were either not examined physically "until four months after the
crash", or not recovered for examination for up to nine months after the July 17, 2014, downing.
"... Even though "Almaz-Antey" had informed the Netherlands board in advance that the "Buk" SAM
could have only been launched at the Boeing from the area of the village of Zaroshchenskoe (which
at the time was under the control of the Ukrainian military) and that this had been confirmed
by field tests, the Dutch coloured the launch area of the missile in a very different place on
the map. (see map). ..."
"Almaz-Antey" have accused the Netherlands of falsifying the map of where the Boeing
crashed
This time the Netherlands Commission of Inquiry has been caught lying red-handed about the
Russian concern "Almaz-Antey", which developed the "Buk" anti-aircraft missile systems. "Almaz-Antey"
has announced that a map covering the 320 square kilometer area from where a missile targeted
against the Boeing could have been launched is not only erroneous but also that the Dutch in their
report had indicated that their data were supposedly consistent with "Almaz-Antey"calculations.
That is, they covered up their concoctions with the authoritative report of the Russian company.
Even though "Almaz-Antey" had informed the Netherlands board in advance that the "Buk" SAM
could have only been launched at the Boeing from the area of the village of Zaroshchenskoe (which
at the time was under the control of the Ukrainian military) and that this had been confirmed
by field tests, the Dutch coloured the launch area of the missile in a very different place on
the map. (see map).
The US key strategy is the same as British -- to cut Europe from Russia. This time it again work
brilliantly... The fact the USA are withholding evidence implicates Kiev.
"... Because it was supposed to clearly show that rebels did it . No need to rely on social media
and other unreliable sources. Plus it was classified before ut was mentioned about. So you fake democrat
and liberal really wasn't to live in the world where you will be prosecuted on sure information that
is so secret that nobody can know about it ;) ..."
"... How guys like you can pretend to love Orwell so much? Don't you realize today the joke is on
you? ..."
"... Do you understand that this is not a regular crash incident? Based on the unsupported assumptions
there are already economic sanctions imposed and the world is gearing up for the WW3. How dumb can you
be not to notice the difference? ..."
"... Ukies shot the plane down stupidly hoping the blame will fall on Russia and NATO will declare
war on Putin amidst worldwide uproar and indignation. They now may realize they had committed murder
most foul for nothing. This kinda reminds of the play 'Macbeth'. What's done cannot be undone. ..."
"... Almost all the damage concentrated in cockpit/front fuselage. Now how does that tie to the
BUK scenario exactly? how does the damage from High energy objects conform to sharpnel from BUK especially
as there are both entry and exit holes? ..."
"... "The specific area where the fatal missile was fired is not in fact under control of the "pro-Russia
rebels". It is run by a neo-nazi private mercenary army, raised by Ukrainian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky.
..."
"... Kolomoisky stinks of being an asset of the US and Israeli intelligence services, at minimum.
..."
"... Dutch Prime Minister Rutte had to acknowledge on TV on September 12th that the Netherlands
had refused to even communicate with the Separatist. This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government
disqualifies it from leading the investigation and has obviously hampered the investigation up till
now. ..."
"... This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government also clarifies why the role of UkSATSE
isn't questioned. ..."
"... the question 'who launched a missile' is actually less relevant than 'who created the situation
by allowing MH17 to fly there'. ..."
"... UkSATSE failed to close that airspace after july 14 whena AN-24 was downed from 6500m and only
restricted up to 10km. 6500m is beyond the man portable system range. ..."
"... The report section 2.4.3 issued by the investigation simply stated that MH17 complied to the
restrictions issued by UkSATSE. By ignoring the most obvious question the investigation was now under
serious doubt but the extreme partisan positioning as revealed by the Dutch minister put that report
in the 'beyond doubt partisan category'. ..."
"... On the other hand, if Kiev can shoot down the airliner and blame the separatists, or even better,
Russia, then they would be backed by the west. Who has the most to gain? ..."
"... Then we have an investigation where all members have to agree with the report or a single member
can veto the release, which is why they are not allowed to assign blame, and why they have not been
allowed to state anything more than they have. ..."
"... I doubt any hard evidence will ever come out, and we will have to settle for innuendo and finger
pointing, allowing the west to isolate Russia even further till the missile shield network sits right
on their borders. ..."
"... What I find a bit troubling is that the obvious conclusion -- that the plane was hit by a ground
fired missile -- isn't backed up by any intelligence. Its reasonable to think that the US's NRO is watching
the Ukraine closely so they should have been able to get almost real time confirmation of the launcher's
position and use. ..."
"... Nobody willingly takes down an airliner unless there's serious propaganda to be made from it.
So its either a serious screwup by the rebels or something rather more evil by the blackops types. (I'd
regard the latter as a tinfoil helmet theory except that we've found out time and again that these people
are capable of doing anything provided it achieves their goal.) ..."
"... Yes indeed, US satellite data is highly secret unless it backs up the US Government's claims.
I don't suppose you're old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis and the release of all sort of
reconnaissance on the matter. ..."
"... Some suggest that an air to air missile might then be the cause of the fragmentation...but
this also is problematic, most AA missiles are not powerful enough to take out a large civil aircraft.
Many instances of smaller less well built passenger planes surviving AA strikes have been recorded...But
2 or 3 might do it..but the pilots would surely called Mayday.. They didn't, suggesting they had no
idea what hit them, ..."
"... Conclusion: Still no closer to knowing which side brought it down, whether it was just a cock
up, or a black flag. Plenty of propaganda, accusations, denials, but any real evidence so far is very
thin on the ground. ..."
"... It's funny how the press are falling over themselves to say it was definitely Russians, the
EU are desperate for it to be Russians, the Americans are desperate for it to be Russians - so when
something factual comes out that doesn't toe the expectant line they have to drop in the odd implication
and suggested line. ..."
"... the heavy coat of varnish that's clearly been applied to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report.
..."
"... It's clear that Kiev benefited the most from the event, and the US exploited is to the fullest
to impose sanctions on Russia before any investigation was even initiated. The reluctance of both Kiev
and the US to provide evidence required for the investigation is bound to raise questions. ..."
"... This horrible tragedy has been and no doubt will be exploited for petty political gains. I
am sorry to see even the Dutch entering this shameful game by signing that non-disclosure agreement
with one of the suspects, the Kiev government. ..."
"... Sadly this 100-year old British company has been compromised being taken over by a Canadian
company belonging to zionists. Canadian PM Harper is a blind follower of Israeli extremists. So V Putin
is enemy number one and you can't use Reuters as an unbiased source once more. Russia has had to up
its game recently in the Arctic purely because Harper has become aggressive to please the US. ..."
"... Kiev Russian-speaking soldiers disguised as Donbass security forces ( rebels ) could have driven
a Buk into the Donbass, fired the missile and then driven back, making sure to be seen by foreign journalists
( Ukraine is a huge country, how come the journalists were on the same spot at the right moment to see
the Buk driving around ? very convenient..) ..."
"... The US and Israel both have motives to shoot the plane down. They had been convicted of war
crimes in KL last year and their cases sent to the ICC in Holland. MH17 was also full of Dutch passengers
- right ..."
"... Plus, the ukraine airforce is in a bad state due to lack of funds. So the US and Israelis were
providing assistance, also Poland and Lithuania, of pilots and equipment. No-one knows who was piloting
the two Su-25s detected by Russian radar. ..."
"... I did not speculate on why the pilot did not want to climb. It make no difference. By refusing
the order the pilot assumed responsibility for the fate of the plane. Civil aviation pilots have no
right to refuse orders of competent ground authorities and still enjoy the protections granted by international
treaties to civil aviation. ..."
"... I don't understand your statement about the report says there was no abnormal communication
. Are you contesting my claim that the pilot refused an order to climb up just minutes before being
hit? I'm basing my claim on what I read in previous articles in the Guardian on this. It could be wrong.
I wasn't there personally. ..."
"... Since the Ukraine has veto power over publication of the findings, this whole investigation
is a whitewash. Why isn't Russia part of the investigation with veto power? Giving one of the suspects
in a crime the ability to block publication of the findings is ludicrous. ..."
"... I am quite sure that bullets are high energy objects but the Western media seems to ignore
that possibility, as it would implicate Ukraine, which has veto power over any publication of findings.
..."
"... Just a little tip. Don't ever use anything that comes out of the Kiev offices. It is all 100%
unbelievable. All of it. ..."
"... All of this is just speculation. Question 1: where are the Satellite images of that area at
that exact time? Question 2: where are the audio transmissions between the crew and the flight towers?
Question 3: why did the BBC remove its own segment that was done shortly afterwards where they had people
on record stating that they had seen a jet flying behind if? Question 4: who ordered the BBC remove
its own segment? Question 5: If the pilots where shot at by a 'jet' as is believed by many - what about
the autopsies of the pilots? Were any done? What did they find. Question 6: if a BUK missile had taken
it down how come there was not a trail from the missile? These missiles do leave a rather distinctive
trial behind them that is seen for kilometers. Question 7: who ordered the plane to fly lower than was
deemed safe for that area? So many questions and so little facts… Perhaps they questions do not fit
the narrative? ..."
"... The mere fact that the United States MSM has dropped this topic like a hot potato (compare
CNN coverage of MH17 with the endless coverage of MH370) and the complete lack of verified NATO or US
or CIA satellite data implies that the Russians were not at fault here. ..."
Because it was supposed to "clearly show that rebels did it". No need to rely on social
media and other unreliable sources. Plus it was classified before ut was mentioned about. So you
fake democrat and liberal really wasn't to live in the world where you will be prosecuted on sure
information that is so secret that nobody can know about it ;)
How guys like you can pretend to love Orwell so much? Don't you realize today the joke
is on you?
Shaneo -> DELewes 15 Sep 2014 04:55
Ok, but John Kerry claimed to have seen the imagery of the launch, so you don't need to say
'likely' launch site.
Ask to see this imagery and we will know where the launch site is.
Will you do this?
And does it not make you suspicious that this imagery is being withheld?
Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 15 Sep 2014 03:46
Do you understand that this is not a regular crash incident? Based on the unsupported assumptions
there are already economic sanctions imposed and the world is gearing up for the WW3. How dumb
can you be not to notice the difference?
I will give you a better example. The PRELIMINARY report by FEMA on 9/11 was released in May
2002 - that was very heavy in terms of pages and released in May 2002 (8 months after the event).
It was heavy in terms of pages and contained data not only about 4 planes and 3 buildings. It
was quite detailed in terms of TECHNICAL data.
There is absolutely no reason to withheld the factual data for public analysis. Particularly
in this situation. The facts about the event will not change. Or should I stress on it - the already
available facts SHOULD not change no matter how commission will later interpret them.
Antidyatel 2meters 15 Sep 2014 03:19
Calm down with Su-25 theory. Even if Russian MoD was implying possible culpability of that
plane, they didn't make the direct accusation. The whole mentioning was less than a minute out
of the whole 30 min presentation, in which the main focus was on 4 Ukrainian BUKs in the area.
Just from this proportion one can asses the priority of the versions that Russian MoD was considering.
So stop fighting windmills, my Don Quixote!
Antidyatel 2meters 15 Sep 2014 03:12
First of all, where did you get the data about 55 km?
Even the latest modification of BUK-M2. While everyone is talking about BUK-M1. More to this,
it is mainly claimed that a stand alone 9A310 unit was witnessed. It has FIRE DOME radar with
max engagement range of 35 km (some sources limit it to 32 km)
So your convinced part goes down the drain!
Second, do you understand that the maximum radar range represents a radius of a 3D sphere?
For the target flying at 10 km the relevant projection on the 2D map will be 33.5 km.
Let's stop at this for now.
2meters Antidyatel 15 Sep 2014 02:19
And NO. And SU-25 fighter jet cannot "gain an altitude of 10km" as the Russian Defense Ministry
asserted on July 21.
According to its specification its altitude ceiling is 7 km, even though someone working Kremlin
servers changed that to 10 km on Russian Wikipedia, hours after the Russian Defense Ministry's
press conference.
What I put in quotes is EXACTLY what the Russian Defense Ministry was telling us.
MoD didn't accuse that the plane was involved.
You are not getting this, are you ?
Let me spell it out :
That SU-25 DID NOT EXIST !
Radar would have shown it, and it did not.
Even General Peter Deinekin states that probably what the Russian Defence Ministry showed on their
radar image was probably a part of MH-17 breaking off.
If the Russian Defense Ministry would have actually shown the radar timelap (video) of when
and where that dot on their radar actually appeared, then we could have all seen that for ourselves.
But they did not, since it was no SU-25. It was a part of MH-17 breaking off.
Instead they used the radar images of the PIECES of a civilian airliner that killed 298 innocent
people to create a SU-25 conspiracy and point the finger at Ukraine.
Despicable.
Antidyatel -> jimbuluk 15 Sep 2014 01:30
Is there any original source that explains the meaning behind "transponder data became unreliable
at 13:18Z"?
Where did the Aviation Herald got this data from?
2meters -> Antidyatel 15 Sep 2014 01:27
Antidytel, yes, MH-17 was probably about 35 km away from the BUK launch site south of Snizhne
when the crew pressed the launch button.
The radar range of a single BUK TELAR is at least 55 km.
At 250 m/sec, MH 17 will thus have been on the BUK search radar something like 80 sec before
they launched the missile.
Even with conservative estimates of missile flight time and path, the Snizhne BUK launch crew
had about a minute to lock on their radar, and wait for the 'target' to come into range.
Convinced now ?
Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 23:59
I have to disagree with you. Even preliminary technical report should contain the technical
data already available. There is no justifiable reason for withholding any information. The next
report can just add new information.
So the preliminary report should have provided:
1) Civil and military radar data from Ukraine. It is very unprofessional for them not to at
least request it from Ukraine side. If Ukraine refused to provide it, it should have been clearly
stated
2) ATC communications along the whole route of MH17
3) full transcript from voice recorder. You can't possible believe that pilots were flying
in total silence
4) Technical data from the second black box on plane parameters. Particularly the data from
gyroscope that would give the most precise data on the plane actual route
5) other critical parameters.
Seriously it is not a herculean task for a 2 months of job. They have a whole team to do it.
How unprofessional can they be to fail with such simple task?
The purpose of the preliminary report is not to give the abridged/filtered version of the data.
The purpose should be tor provide the available data but to make only PRELIMINARY conclusions.
Only in this sense it can be called preliminary.
The current report can only be described by words SELECTIVE, EDITED, FILTERED and BIASED!!!
Antidyatel -> notherLex21 14 Sep 2014 22:36
4 different BUKs in the vicinity of the crash site were detected by Russians based on these
BUKs' outgoing radar signal.
Let's consider your points:
1) BUK system captured by rebels in Luhansk region, was incomplete so the maximum radar range
was 22 km. But we can first consider the improbable scenario that Russians first sneaked in and
then sneaked our the complete set for the BUK system. Ok we can exclude the loader. So let's just
say 2 units (actual launcher and radar unit), hence temporally I can agree on 35 km.
2) If you go to google maps and estimate the distance from Snizhne (proposed location for rebel
BUK) to Krasiy Luch (FDR point) it is approximately 24 km. (version of incomplete BUK system can
already be discarded). BUK max missile speed 850 m/s. 24 km it will travel in 28 sec. BUK requires
minimum 15 sec to lock on target. So even if we assume that "best" scenario, Boeing was traveling
for minimum 43 sec before it's first appearance on BUK radar and rocket hitting it. Cruise speed
of Boeing 777 ~ 900 km/h. So we get roughly 11 km. Just nice 35 km. But this is minimum. For example,
the rocket doesn't reach 850 m/sec immediately.
The point is that it would have been an extremely "lucky" coincidence for this scenario to work.
And again I repeat, it will require the full set of BUK units, not just the launcher. The so named
"proofs" of Russians sneaking in and out such a system are so laughable that I can't understand
how people can talk seriously about it.
4) The reference to the territory held by rebels is also laughable. The total number of rebels
on that moment was ~5000. But even if we take 10,000, you will get a fraction of a rebel per square
kilometre, if we assume that they are distributed equally. In reality majority of them were concentrated
in fixed positions around Lughansk, Donetsk and Saur Mogila. also large portion of them was involved
is annihilating surrounded UA units. If UA wanted to bring in BUKs into so named rebel controlled
area there would be no problem with it.
SirDeadpool 14 Sep 2014 22:31
Ukies shot the plane down stupidly hoping the blame will fall on Russia and NATO will declare
war on Putin amidst worldwide uproar and indignation. They now may realize they had committed
murder most foul for nothing. This kinda reminds of the play 'Macbeth'. What's done cannot be
undone.
bobby_fisher ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 18:14
ShermanPotter -- Antidyatel
14 Sep 2014 16:09
The key is in the title it's a preliminary report...
So you basically agree that presented data is incomplete....I also hope your level of English
language comprehension will allow you to distinguish black box recordings and conversations between
civilian ATC and military command that is not in the report, and according to Ukrainian reports
was confiscated from civilian controllers.
notherLex21 jimbuluk 14 Sep 2014 16:46
when the transponder data became unreliable at 13:18Z (position N48.28 E38.08)"
The DSB
rapport-mh-17-en-interactief.pdf shows the transcript (page 15) where MH17 pilots last reply
is at 13:19:56.
Sorry, but the Aviation Herald is inaccurate.
"was enroute at FL330 about 20nm northeast of Donetsk (Ukraine) when the transponder
data became unreliable at 13:18Z (position N48.28 E38.08)"
Transponder data can't become unreliable without reason. And that reason led to the crash within
two minutes. The distance between the point the transponder data became unreliable and Snizhne
is approx 65 km, that's way beyond the range of BUK's missile, not to say about it's radar, -
less than 9 km.
ShermanPotter -> Antidyatel 14 Sep 2014 11:09
The key is in the title it's a preliminary report, that examines the technical reasons for
the crash of MH-17. In tandem is a criminal investigation.
The Preliminary report, has established that MH-17 was shot down and that immediately before
that event was operating normally with normal crew communications with ATC. The rest of what you
are talking about is for the criminal investigative team to examine and report to the Court.
Antidyatel -> 2meters 14 Sep 2014 09:46
No it is not what they were telling.
MoD didn't accuse that the plane was involved. They only stated yhe facts that there was a
potential for it to be involved. That is why additional data was requested from Ukraine to clarify.
Stark difference to blanket accusations based on tea leaves in a cup that were loaded by the list
of discredited a-holes in the beginning of your post
Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 08:27
For example, the missing part is the primary surveillance radar recordings. It would be expected
that if Ukraine wanted to help with investigation. it would supply not only civilian traffic data
but also the data of all military radars on that day. Not such a hard task. Report doesn't stress
on it but clearly indicates that even civil traffic data was not submitted. They could easily
reveal that data in the first few days after the incident or after the Russian MoD report and
clarify the issue with military planes in the air at that time. What prevents them from doing
it after 2 months?
Out of the whole page of those recordings only 3 lines are with MH17. Nothing of an essence.
There was absolutely no reason why not to provide the data from the moment MH17 entered Ukrainian
airspace or even from start of the flight. It would take 2-3 hours max to compile the communication
with ground control along the whole route. And they didn't need to wait even for black boxes to
do it. How unprofessional your professionals can be?
Most of the communication, that was revealed is related to communication between Dnepropetrovsk
and Rostov. No point withholding that information as Russians have the same transcript, I guess.
For MH17 the only portion of interest is 11 seconds before the disaster. This is bogus. And still
there is absolutely no excuse not to release the whole transcript of the black box, in the situation
which potentially can bring the world to the WW3. You don't joke with such things.
ShermanPotter -> Antidyatel 14 Sep 2014 05:22
So what information are you claiming is missing?
As well as that you list Page 14 also describes that Ukrainian ATC supplied radio and telephone
recordings and transcripts relating to MH-17.
The transcript in the preliminary report is just of the last few minutes of its flight before
being shot down, what more do you expect from a Preliminary report?
Antidyatel -> ShermanPotter 14 Sep 2014 04:18
Actually if you look strictly at the report specifies only 3 sources of ATC data:
1. Primary surveillance radar recorded by the Russian surveillance aids
2. Secondary surveillance radar
3. Automatic Dependant Surveillance
The explanation of the last 2 are given at the end of page 14 of the report. Which shows that
primary data from Ukrainian radars is still withheld.
The transcript provided is appearing to be incomplete. It is not like they were afraid of the
page limit. Why not to give the whole transcript? Also this transcript is strangely different
from the one given in BBC web-site
Isn't that exactly what western media and blogger and US intelligence had been telling us all
along ?
Interesting how this works with Kremlin war propaganda.
For starters, please note that General Peter Deinekin with his statement directly contradicts
the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia's military forces, Lieutenant-General
Andrey Kartopolov, who started this whole SU-25 conspiracy theory on July 21 :
The Russian military detected a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet gaining height towards the MH17
Boeing on the day of the catastrophe. Kiev must explain why the military jet was tracking the
passenger airplane, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
and
"The SU-25 fighter jet can gain an altitude of 10km, according to its specification," he
added. "It's equipped with air-to-air R-60 missiles that can hit a target at a distance up
to 12km, up to 5km for sure."
Which opened up the floodgates for SU-25 conspiracy theorists and their accompanied anti-Ukraine
comments here in the Guardian comment sections and around the MSM.
While in fact there was no Ukrainian or any other fighter jet around.
Now, of course, the pro-Russian trolls will drop the SU-25 conspiracy theory and switch to
the next one : that Ukrainians fired that SA-11 missile.
Forgetting to look at the big picture : If the Russia or the Russian military had nothing to
do with this BUK, then why the heck were they lying through their teeth on July 21 ?
The distance between these two points is approx 65 km. Book's missile could reach 30 km. The
Book's radar reaches even less - under 9 km, That's it.
Antidyatel notherLex21 14 Sep 2014 02:25
Probably true. Which narrows down to the simple choice: was it one of the 4 Ukrainian BUKs
that were known to be in the area or an imaginary rebel's BUK.
If we go strictly and watch the 30 min presentation by Russian MoD, they never accused Su-25
to be responsible for downing the plane. They only stated the fact that the plane was detected
at that time and at that place. If they really wanted to falsely accuse ukie plane they would
not state that it was Su-25.
ShanghaiGuy -> Dunscore 13 Sep 2014 22:11
Crap, 30mm cannon fire would require a sustained burst to cause catastrophic structural failure,
audible on recorders. 30mm cannon is not typical air to air ordance, ground attack on slower aircraft
, taken some chase at high altitude. Sorry your apologists bs is a fairy story.
Ground launched AAM destroyed the airliner.
Antidyatel Hektor Uranga 13 Sep 2014 22:02
My dear Huylo Hector, immediately after the crush every theory was plausible. Each of them
had to be eliminated based on facts. The fairy tail about rebels downing MH17 had an upper habd
in first week because Kerry promised satellite images that clearly prove rebels' s culpability.
After such images didn't materialise, the statement by Kerry became discredited. He had to
be responsible for his words.
So after that any other theory gets the same footing. The assertion that UA downed the plane
became more probable after the data presented by Russian MoD. The quality difference to USA/EUROPE/Ukraine
garbage comes from first presenting all the known fact and then letting everyone else to make
a conclusion. Instead of giving a theory first and then ask to just believe. This stupid idol-worshiping
by westerners will never stop amusing me.
notherLex21 13 Sep 2014 17:17
This Russian expects it was a BUK.
Former Air Force Commander of the USSR and the Russian Army General Peter Deinekin:
"Assault can not hit the plane with their weapons, he is a slow, low-altitude. Besides his
actions could be seen on radar. And striking effect aircraft missiles are not as powerful as
in" Buck "
Shoot down the plane could altitude fighter MiG-29 or Su-27, but it at the time in that
area was not, said the expert.
karl - entrusted with propagating the disinformation campaign?
based on facts alone, there is not a single shred of evidence typing BUK launced by supposed
"rebels" to the downing of MH17. There are, OTOH< quite a few pieces pf evidence pointing to cannon
fire from an aircraft. Funny how the disinformation agents never want to draw attention to evidence
that in any way points away from their favorite scenarios.
Example: Almost all the damage concentrated in cockpit/front fuselage. Now how does that
tie to the BUK scenario exactly? how does the damage from High energy objects conform to sharpnel
from BUK especially as there are both entry and exit holes?
And what of the US intelligence evidence showing people on the ground manning a BUK and wearing
UK uniforms?
I am not suggesting that it's air-to-air or surface to air only. what we know so far may well
conform both were in action. As sedman above mentions.
As for this preliminary report it is quite a piece on work in how hard it strives NOT to point
out some pretty obvious facts.
bobby_fisher ShermanPotter 13 Sep 2014 16:42
Not so fast, you do not need records to be provided that are recorded by the black boxes
It is conversations between civilian and military ATC's that are of interest and there is no mention
of that in your link.
Secr3t krislej 13 Sep 2014 16:34
Are you still trying to convince people of this idea that an SU-25 shot down MH-17.
Maybe the Former head of the Russian Airforce and Army can convince you then?
He states quite clearly that the idea that MH-17 was shot down by an SU-25 as completely untenable,
he goes on to state that it is possible an SU-27 or Mig-29 would be capable but none were in the
area.
He also says that MH-17 broke apart in the air as a result of multiple sharpnel strikes and
that it was likely from a BUK.
And before you cry western conspiracy he stated this in Russian media.
Firing a cannon from the side (the holes show entry from the side) would not get the spread
of damage that you see, and it's unlikely that you could get that many hits in at all given how
quickly you are closing.
A SAM burst (from the kind of missile under suspicion) close to the front left side of the
aircraft would yield a somewhat evenly spaced pattern of holes, as the fragments originate from
one point and spread outwards.
The gun fires 50 rounds per second, at the closing speed, the pilot would have had perhaps
2 seconds to fire, and he got around 30% of them hitting a target moving across him at 500mph?
This theory belongs in Hollywood.
Mrg Billman 13 Sep 2014 14:19
If the Kiev regime can fire and destroy their own APC column like we seen at the begining of
the conflict I have no doubts that they are capable of somehow orchestrating a downing of a civilian
airliner.
Realworldview ShanghaiGuy 13 Sep 2014 14:10
ShanghaiGuy you need to keep up with the evidence, its not my opinion that it was shot down
by a military aircraft, but that of US Intelligence analysts, as reported in US analysts conclude
MH17 downed by aircraft .
The conclusion was that it was damaged by an air to air missile that shreds its target with
flechettes, and then finished off with 30mm cannon fire that was responsible for the circular
holes in fragments of the airframe, as these extracts show:
KUALA LUMPUR: INTELLIGENCE analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia
Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government
had had something to do with it.
This corroborates an emerging theory postulated by local investigators that the Boeing 777-200
was crippled by an air-to-air missile and finished off with cannon fire from a fighter that had
been shadowing it as it plummeted to earth.
In a damning report dated Aug 3, headlined "Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts", Associated
Press reporter Robert Parry said "some US intelligence sources had concluded that the rebels and
Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame".
Yesterday, the New Straits Times quoted experts who had said that photographs of the blast fragmentation
patterns on the fuselage of the airliner showed two distinct shapes - the shredding pattern associated
with a warhead packed with "flechettes", and the more uniform, round-type penetration holes consistent
with that of cannon rounds.
Parry's conclusion also stemmed from the fact that despite assertions from the Obama administration,
there has not been a shred of tangible evidence to support the conclusion that Russia supplied
the rebels with the BUK-M1 anti-aircraft missile system that would be needed to hit a civilian
jetliner flying at 33,000 feet.
bobby_fisher Asimpleguest 13 Sep 2014 12:32
The plane was directed in to the war zone, specifically in to the small area, where 13 aircraft
were already blown out of the sky in just a few weeks.
It could not have happened without some interaction between civilian and military ATC's.....and
these records are completely missing, in fact confiscated by SBU"
isn't shooting down a civilian plane & blaming Putin for it a wonderful way for justifying
sanctions against Russia? venturing far into speculations (quoted journalists have done, so I
follow even if everyone here calls me an idiot).. what if someone decided to bring down a civilian
plane, to make people very angry, cause everything (the West presents) points his way? then the
result arre sanctions, and yuppie, USA can soon replace Russia as the main natural gas providor..
it's been all over the news.. and in the end, it's always about profits for the big multinationals
"The specific area where the fatal missile was fired is not in fact under control of the
"pro-Russia rebels". It is run by a neo-nazi private mercenary army, raised by Ukrainian billionaire
Ihor Kolomoisky.
"Kolomoisky stinks of being an asset of the US and Israeli intelligence services, at minimum.
He holds both Ukrainian and Israeli passports and runs his business empire from Switzerland, not
Kiev, despite being Governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast in eastern Ukraine. His mercenary army does
possess the BUK missiles allegedly used in the shootdown of MH-17, and he has threatened terrorist
attacks on Russian-speaking officials in his oblast, and even assassinations.
"Estimated to be the second-richest person in Ukraine, Kolomoisky also has strong connections
inside Kiev's Borispol International Airport, whose air traffic control tower Ukrainian Interior
Ministry troops reportedly stormed shortly before MH-17 was shot down. New Ukrainian Interior
Minister Arsen Avakov, formerly wanted by Interpol for fraud, was the man who first designated
the east Ukraine rebels as "terrorists," which ostensibly allows him to commit any atrocity against
innocent civilians very much as Israel is doing in Gaza today.
"Furthermore, in a personal interview with the Veterans Today Tbilisi Georgia bureau chief
Jeffrey Silverman pointed shared with Engdahl the possible complicity of the Inmarsat Company
in the MH17. Inmarsat, which lists the Pentagon and US Government as major clients, controls most
international air traffic control communications systems. According to Silverman, during the earlier
disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 the flight was "lost" due to Inmarsat turning
off their signals, and it still refuses today to release the data it has about this flight.
Look what The Guardian left out of its report - just found a more complete report of what the
Dutch chief investigator said:
ROTTERDAM: Dutch prosecutors said today they need to know where a missile that may have shot
down flight MH17 was fired from in eastern Ukraine before criminal charges could be laid.
"When we know from where it was fired, then we can find out who controlled that area," and
possibly prosecute, Dutch chief investigator Fred Westerbeke told journalists in Rotterdam.
Westerbeke said that they had not yet obtained US satellite photos of areas from which a missile
might have been launched.
"We will get them," Westerbeke said, adding that it was a "long process."
errovi 13 Sep 2014 03:07
Dutch Prime Minister Rutte had to acknowledge on TV on September 12th that the Netherlands
had refused to even communicate with the Separatist. This extreme partisan position of the Dutch
government disqualifies it from leading the investigation and has obviously hampered the investigation
up till now.
This extreme partisan position of the Dutch government also clarifies why the role of UkSATSE
isn't questioned. In the chain of events leading to the downing of the aircraft still assuming
it was a mistake the question 'who launched a missile' is actually less relevant than 'who
created the situation by allowing MH17 to fly there'.
UkSATSE failed to close that airspace after july 14 whena AN-24 was downed from 6500m and
only restricted up to 10km. 6500m is beyond the man portable system range. So why didn't
UkSATSE did not close that air space and waited till after the downing of MH17. The report
section 2.4.3 issued by the investigation simply stated that MH17 complied to the restrictions
issued by UkSATSE. By ignoring the most obvious question the investigation was now under serious
doubt but the extreme partisan positioning as revealed by the Dutch minister put that report in
the 'beyond doubt partisan category'.
Antidyatel -> Karl Brandt 13 Sep 2014 05:39
The same AP journalist claimed to see the BUK himself and even the treads inn asphalt tgat
this heavy system had left. But surprisingly he forgot to rake a photo not only of BUK but also
of treads that ge has described so vividly. Spanish traffic controller story actually less contradictory.
Shaneo -> ShiresofEngland 13 Sep 2014 03:06
Immediately after, John Kerry claimed that the US witnessed the rocket launch on 'imagery'.
So let's see it then.
sedman -> ruffsoft 13 Sep 2014 01:15
The BUK system is designed to deliver the payload from above, yes it avoids the target to get
above it, then comes down and explodes above where the cockpit would be... This doesn't explain
videos of MH17 descending intact with its right engine ablaze.
sedman 13 Sep 2014 00:52
Ukraine fighter shoots MH17 with air-to-air missile, takes out right engine. MH17 does not
break up, but heads for a forced landing. Ukraine fighter finishes it off MH17 on its way down.
But, we are lead to believe that the separatists were operating a BUK system made up of 5 separate
mobile installations, 3 radar, 1 launcher and 1 control vehicle, which is capable of identifying
B777 aircraft accurately (two transponders), then decided it would be in their interests to take
out a civilian airliner, which would, even in an idiots assessment, bring the wrath of the world
opon it. They are not terrorists, they are rebels, they are not using IEDs to blow up civilians,
they just dont want to have Kiev taking their taxes and telling them what to do.
On the other hand, if Kiev can shoot down the airliner and blame the separatists, or even
better, Russia, then they would be backed by the west. Who has the most to gain?
Then we have an investigation where all members have to agree with the report or a single
member can veto the release, which is why they are not allowed to assign blame, and why they have
not been allowed to state anything more than they have. The facts that are being released
in this report is evidence enough that the investigation is being manipulated and directed to
ensure that conclusions can not be drawn from facts, all we can rely on is speculation from the
press and comments. I doubt any hard evidence will ever come out, and we will have to settle
for innuendo and finger pointing, allowing the west to isolate Russia even further till the missile
shield network sits right on their borders.
martinusher 12 Sep 2014 23:35
What I find a bit troubling is that the obvious conclusion -- that the plane was hit by
a ground fired missile -- isn't backed up by any intelligence. Its reasonable to think that the
US's NRO is watching the Ukraine closely so they should have been able to get almost real time
confirmation of the launcher's position and use.
Nobody willingly takes down an airliner unless there's serious propaganda to be made from
it. So its either a serious screwup by the rebels or something rather more evil by the blackops
types. (I'd regard the latter as a tinfoil helmet theory except that we've found out time and
again that these people are capable of doing anything provided it achieves their goal.)
ThreeCents JCDavis 12 Sep 2014 20:56
"Everything coming from the UK and US governments is a lie at one level or another and should
be carefully investigated."
I agree very strongly. And I think the key word here is "investigation".
Ah, but who is going to do the investigating?
Well, I would favor an "Investigation Party" -- which would push hard on investigating all
manner of corruption and conspiracy, and which would campaign on that basis.
And I would favor an "Investigation Branch" of government, on the same level as the Legislative,
Executive, and Judicial Branches of government. It would be dedicated to making everything in
government NOT secret! Secrecy = Tyranny. Truth = Liberty.
Click here for more.
UncleSam404 Karl Brandt 12 Sep 2014 20:48
Whatever happened to Carlos anyway lol? I guess they couldn't locate this guy.
tanyushka 12 Sep 2014 20:12
why isn't the International Civil Aviation Organization in charge of the investigation as is
custommay in these cases?
why isn't in charge an international comission as the UN demanded unanimously?
now, if we talk about chances... the Ukranian army had six BUK systems operative at the time
of the incident while the DPR forces deny having a single one but... let's accept Kiev's claims
that there was one, the chances are 6 to 1 that the Ukraninas shot...
on the other hand, Russia claims that there was an Ukranian jet fighter close to the plane
& it isn't even mentionedin the investigation
BMWAlbert 12 Sep 2014 18:01
This seems the most likely possibility, but I wonder at the release without any backing detail,
it sounds like intended innuendo also.
William J Rood EnviroCapitalist 12 Sep 2014 17:55
Yes indeed, US satellite data is highly secret unless it backs up the US Government's claims.
I don't suppose you're old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis and the release of all
sort of reconnaissance on the matter.
If the US government had any real evidence whatsoever, you'd have seen that rather than all
the photo-shopped social media stuff that's been going around. Lack of evidence is why CIA analysts
have refused to support the State Department's lies. They learned their lesson from the Iraq War.
Did you?
Rob711 12 Sep 2014 17:35
The shooting down scenario. Obviously they haven't picked up on some of the perfectly round
holes in some of the debris. Never mind the question of why the unfortunate plane and it's passengers
were flying over an area where 5 planes had been downed in the preceding two weeks
More propaganda, but something which hasn't been answered to my satisfaction.
So let's tread carefully and just ask a few more questions that these so-called journalists
in the mainstream media are neglecting to ask. For example: Why hasn't the US government released
its satellite pictures of the area right after the event?
Obviously the USA would have satellites watching, and did expect after it happened that the
White House would do some sort of presentation after a few days to prove who shot down MH17. They
were quick to accuse and had hoped they had the evidence which would be damning, but they haven't.
ShiresofEngland Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 16:43
Yes, and that is disputed. Each side keeps coming up with propaganda where not one of us knows
the truth.
ps the the poster below. It isn't 'lazy self indulgence'. Saying that I do not know who done
it is a valid position, and more honest than most on here. Like everyone with any compassion I
believe that the relatives of the victims of MH17 deserve the truth, something they have thus
far not got.
Luminaire ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 16:33
That would mean a Ukrainian jet yes? Which the russian's showed radar data proving? Just before
MH17 vanishes you can see a second trace, which the RU MOD say is a fighter jet.
Except it doesn't. The MH17 trace splits in two, because one part is the 'supposed' location
(based on the flightplan and predicted path), and the supposed SU-25 is actually MH17 as it breaks
up.
The reason this is obvious to anyone who actually does any research is that 'MH17' becomes
a square, and the 'SU-25' is a circle. In that software the circle represents a 'real' radar contact,
and the square is a predicted path - as squares always are.
If there was a jet as well there would be 2 circles and a square, because MH17 did just VANISH
so there would have been 2 'real' radar contacts.
So there was no SU-25 - but hey dont let that stop you literally making stuff up and being
'quite sure' about it.
Nicole Bresht -> krislej 12 Sep 2014 16:13
A ground missile would have caused the MG17 to explode in a fireball... seems as if the cockpit
had been shot out with an airborne cannon... not sure an SU fighter could reach needed speed/
height to pull this off.. more likely a MIG
ide000 -> ShermanPotter 12 Sep 2014 16:05
So far today we've had the SU25 shot down MH-17, and now this. You seem to be absolutely desperate
to hang this onto anybody other than Russia. Even coming up with ridiculous scenarios to try and
prove your case.
Lets be precise, Russian ministry of defense didn't reliably identify plain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKhA50erngk
at 14:04). They claim the plain was supposed to be SU-25.
Actually I expected of Dutch experts at least to clarify whether they confirm or do not confirm
presence of military jet in vicinity of MH17.
Brian Beuken LeWillow 12 Sep 2014 15:50
I very much doubt it was a deliberate act, possibly incompetence on the part of the BUK operators...
But it was a BUK, the problem is while we can all spot the smoking gun we can't find enough
of the "bullet" to silence the doubters...so lets lay out some facts and let them make up their
own minds.
Fragmentation patterns can contain a large number of holes that appear to look like "bullet"
holes, but they are simply penetration holes
However there are a lot of holes in a small area in the MH17 pics, this is highly indicative
of a fragmentation warhead which can also explain some of the more isolated holes in other parts
of the fuselage, the fragments can spread out from the nose to the tail but the concentration
will be where the missile was closest where it exploded
Also the holes are fairly small, bullet size some may say.. But modern warplanes do not fire
bullets, they fire 30mm shells...quite devastating weapons which when fired from a moving target
at a moving target leave a very clear trail, and a normally short burst of fire.
Its logistically highly improbably that a ground attack aircraft, without a pressurised cockpit
and not designed to take out air targets, with a max ceiling of 23k ft (unloaded) could get to
a 33K ft airliner at cruising speed which is faster than the Su25's top speed..... But that's
what some want us to believe...but if it did... it has a 30mm cannon...not itty bitty machine
guns....and it would be one hell of a pilot who could get of dozens of shots in the same basic
area... (lets also not ignore the fact that the pilot would know he was attacking a civil aircraft...pilots
are generally pretty clever people, and know when they are committing war crimes)
It could have been another aircraft, Ukraine and Russia both operate high speed interceptors...but
again there's the problem with the gun.....they use cannons, not shotguns or itty bitty machine
guns.
Some suggest that an air to air missile might then be the cause of the fragmentation...but
this also is problematic, most AA missiles are not powerful enough to take out a large civil aircraft.
Many instances of smaller less well built passenger planes surviving AA strikes have been recorded...But
2 or 3 might do it..but the pilots would surely called Mayday.. They didn't, suggesting they had
no idea what hit them,
Of course, there's always the lucky shot..but I doubt that...
Iron has been recovered, many SAM's use Iron, some use steel bearings some use both....but
shells are depleted uranium....so no shells....no bullets...(bullets are not iron).
So these are facts....
Make of them what you wish...but I'm struggling to see anything other than a large SAM....I don't
know from who, or why, that's a different question...
ShiresofEngland 12 Sep 2014 15:47
The plane went down over territory held by pro-Russia rebels, killing all 298 passengers
and crew on board.
Oh I get it so the implication is........
Actually nothing as the launch site isn't known, and could just as easily been fired from Ukrainian
or rebel held territory.
A rebel officer told AP after the disaster that the plane was shot down by a mixed team
of rebels and Russian military personnel who believed they were targeting a Ukrainian military
plane. Intercepted phone conversations between the rebels released by the Ukrainian government
support that version of events.
Which might be true, but there again might not and hasn't been verified. Might be propaganda
and the source is hardly impartial.
So what do we know? Highly probable that it was a BUK which brought down MH17. Ukraine has these
weapon systems, the rebels may have captured one but how serviceable is questionable, and the
Russians may have lent one with a crew but that hasn't been definitely verified. All of them could
have been in the area, or maybe not.
Conclusion: Still no closer to knowing which side brought it down, whether it was just
a cock up, or a black flag. Plenty of propaganda, accusations, denials, but any real evidence
so far is very thin on the ground.
madjens1 12 Sep 2014 15:28
It's funny how the press are falling over themselves to say it was definitely Russians,
the EU are desperate for it to be Russians, the Americans are desperate for it to be Russians
- so when something factual comes out that doesn't toe the expectant line they have to drop in
the odd implication and suggested line.
Then the idiots who read the guardian (who otherwise reject foreign countries being bismirched)
swallow it all up
KeloCote Mrg Billman 12 Sep 2014 14:54
That would be true had the Ukrainians not warned the plane to stay away. In fact, ground control
ordered the plane to climb to a higher altitude, and the pilot disobeyed.
During its recent war on Gaza, Israel kept insisting that it's perfectly safe for civil aviation
to continue landing in its airport near Tel Aviv. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rockets
were flying near the whole path that a plane would take to land - at a time of Hamas's choosing.
Israel was firing even more dangerous missiles at those rockets. Any claim that it's safe for
civilian airlines to fly under such conditions is fundamentally dishonest. But Israel does not
want to admit they've lost control over their 'sovereign' airspace. Similarly, Ukraine did not
want to admit they're lost control over their 'sovereign' airspace, because there's a war going
on. However, in this particular instance, ground control warned the pilot to divert to a higher
altitude using a false pretext. Regardless of the false pretext, the pilot should have diverted
- and by not doing so - is responsible.
Realworldview 12 Sep 2014 14:36
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17: 'most likely' it was shot down from ground
Since when did a ground to air anti-aircraft missile use 30mm cannon shells to destroy its
target. The evidence strongly points to it being a military aircraft that downed MH17 as Dutch
Safety Board (DSB) Report: Malaysian MH17 was Brought Down by "A Large Number of High Energy Objects",
Contradicts US Claims that it Was Shot Down by a "Russian Missile" argues, despite the heavy
coat of varnish that's clearly been applied to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) report.
EugeneGur Dunscore 12 Sep 2014 14:18
This scenario is just as unproved and likely unprovable as all the others. It's clear that
Kiev benefited the most from the event, and the US exploited is to the fullest to impose sanctions
on Russia before any investigation was even initiated. The reluctance of both Kiev and the US
to provide evidence required for the investigation is bound to raise questions.
One would think given how fiercely the US accused Russia they'd be happy to provide evidence
against Russia if they had any. Could that be that the evidence they have point the other way?
And, of course, that non-disclosure agreement, which looks like an attempt at a coverup. Otherwise,
why?
This horrible tragedy has been and no doubt will be exploited for petty political gains.
I am sorry to see even the Dutch entering this shameful game by signing that non-disclosure agreement
with one of the suspects, the Kiev government.
DownSouth77 Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 13:32
Your maximum altitude is generally restricted by 2 factors. The first being that the maximum
altitude is reached when all power produced by the engines is going into maintaining the altitude.
Thus no more power is left available for the aircraft to climb any further. The second factor
is pressurization. Thus the max psi differential between the atmosphere and cabin. When the airframe
can't withstand the differential value between the cabin and the atmosphere the consequences can
and will probably be very bad. This should not be a factor on the SU-25...as its more applicable
to airliners (which in turn can reach roughly 40,000' before this becomes a factor)
Thus back to the maximum altitude and the power produced by the engines. Thats btw also the
reason why when they strip armament from an aircraft they reduce the weight etc and in turn can
reach a heigher altitude with the same engines. Now the first problem here is that everybody assumes
the stock version of the SU-25 (which has a max operating altitude of 7km) is the SU-25 the ukrainians
used. Thus its impossible for it to reach an altitude of 10km etc.
However...lets look at the SU-39...which is in fact a SU-25 which is upgraded...the max altitude
for this aircraft is 10km. Furthermore...the Sukhoi lists its export model the SU-25K as having
a max altitiude of 7km...that specific variant. We dont know for sure that Ukraine has any SU-25
variant that are upgraded enough to reach an altitiude of 10km. However we do know it is definitely
possible for a SU-25 (depending on engines etc) to reach 10km. In short...its useless to quote
the wiki or generic version of the SU-25 max altitiude as reference in saying its impossible to
reach 10km.
In the late 90's Sukhoi 25''s could already reach altitiudes in excess of 8.5km's.
Hope all this makes sense :)
Dunscore Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 13:29
Thanks for the information !
1) Reuters. Sadly this 100-year old British company has been compromised being taken over
by a Canadian company belonging to zionists. Canadian PM Harper is a blind follower of Israeli
extremists. So V Putin is enemy number one and you can't use Reuters as an unbiased source once
more. Russia has had to up its game recently in the Arctic purely because Harper has become aggressive
to please the US.
2) Obviously the incidents are in Crimea etc are orchestrated by Kiev.
Any other explanation is nonsense. The nazi volunteers are the usual suspects. Let's hope that
Mr Nuizmieks is given a chance to see the truth. We should prepare for the McCain trolls to try
to blame any social problems on V Putin.
Dunscore EugeneGur 12 Sep 2014 13:16
I agree with all your thoughts.
Kiev Russian-speaking soldiers disguised as Donbass security forces ("rebels") could have
driven a Buk into the Donbass, fired the missile and then driven back, making sure to be seen
by foreign journalists ( Ukraine is a huge country, how come the journalists were on the same
spot at the right moment to see the Buk driving around ? very convenient..)
The US and Israel both have motives to shoot the plane down. They had been convicted of
war crimes in KL last year and their cases sent to the ICC in Holland. MH17 was also full of Dutch
passengers - right www.criminisewar.org
Plus, the ukraine airforce is in a bad state due to lack of funds. So the US and Israelis
were providing assistance, also Poland and Lithuania, of pilots and equipment. No-one knows who
was piloting the two Su-25s detected by Russian radar.
Russia asked Ukraine 12 crucial questions a month ago - still no answer.
US produced absolutely no professional evidence for the enquiry, nothing except boasting trolls.
Retired veteran CIA secret data analysts wrote a group letter to Obama and Merkel to condemn
US for bringing their profession into disrepute.
Russia provided comprehensive data and evidence to the investigation.
KeloCote Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 13:15
I did not speculate on why the pilot did not want to climb. It make no difference. By refusing
the order the pilot assumed responsibility for the fate of the plane. Civil aviation pilots have
no "right" to refuse orders of competent ground authorities and still enjoy the protections granted
by international treaties to civil aviation.
I don't understand your statement about the "report says there was no abnormal communication".
Are you contesting my claim that the pilot refused an order to climb up just minutes before being
hit? I'm basing my claim on what I read in previous articles in the Guardian on this. It could
be wrong. I wasn't there personally.
Rudeboy1 DownSouth77 12 Sep 2014 12:32
The SA-11 has a proximity fused warhead. The missile detonates when it senses it is close to
the target (proximity fuses then called Variable Time Fuses were used as far back as WW2 by the
US and UK) . Fragmentation at the front end of the aircraft would indicate that the warhead detonated
at the front of the aircraft. Damage from the warhead would be localised. Most SAM's (except the
most modern) rely on prox fuses as the massive speeds they work at mean a direct impact isn't
always possible (particularly on a manoeuvering target).
But you're wrong on the SU-25. There is no way an SU-25 can intercept an airliner at 30,000
travelling at >500kn when that is above the height and speed that the SU-25 can operate at. If
you know why it could please let us all know why.
fragglerokk 12 Sep 2014 12:19
of course he says that, the Dutch people would go nuts if they knew that Shell have signed
a $10 billion fracking deal with the Ukraines who shot down a load of their citizens, it would
be really bad for business especially since they have already started fracking Slavyansk after
the Ukie artillery bombed it out of existence and created 1000s of refugees. The truth will out,
the problem is they are all in it together, money, oil, gas, failed coups, up to their necks in
it. The non disclosure agreement signed by the Dutch, the belgians, the Ukraines and Australians
says it all, no facts, no figures and no details.. total fit up.
Malkatrinho -> LeWillow 12 Sep 2014 12:19
As the bookmaker William Hill once said "Believe nothing of what you hear, and believe only
5% of what you see, and be very suspicious of that 5%."
That's got to be one of the most random quotes I've read.
EugeneGur 12 Sep 2014 12:13
Typical Guardian, impartial and objective as ever. Do these conclusions point to the hand that
launched these "high energy objects"? No, they do not. Even if it is proven beyond any doubt that
the airplane was shot down by ground-to-air missile or even specifically by Buk, does it prove
who did the shooting? No, it does not.
However, pro-Russian rebels are mentioned more than once, so there is no chance to forget who
is supposed to be blamed.
It is possible that Donbass fighters shot down that plane by mistake thinking that was Kiev's
plane coming to bomb their cities. Kiev could've done that as well, in its case likely deliberately.
For some reason, they did have Buks in that area, although separatists do not have airplanes.
Proving which scenario is correct would be difficult. Connecting Russia to this would be even
harder if not impossible. Nobody would bother, though. If "Russia" is repeated often enough, some
dirt will stick no matter what. It's been done already quite successfully.
maico ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 12:13
The report says there was no shrapnel damage bellow the cockpit floor. This means we can discount
an air to air missile which is heat seeking and would hit the engine. The engine is of course
well bellow the cockpit level.
The shrapnel holes are various sizes and shapes pointing strongly to a proximity air-burst
from a radar guided SAM. Obviously once most of the wreckage is recovered and reassembled in a
hanger a definitive answer can be given. Shell casing and powder burn evidence may still be recoverable
although I expect Russian security services have tampered with the wreckage.
Robert Looren de Jong -> Trabecula 12 Sep 2014 12:12
BERA: Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein today denied reports in the social media
that Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH17 was shot down by fighter jets.
He said intelligence and evidence gathered from the fragments of the ill-fated aircraft clearly
showed it was shot down by missiles that were launched to the air from the ground.
"Based on military intelligence and evidence from a portion of fragments found, it is not likely
the bullets were used from air to air but from surface to air. "Whether these were owned by Ukraine
or the rebels who supplied by Russia. the bullets must have come from BUK System and this matter
cannot be denied by Europe, Nato or Russia," he told reporters after officiating the Bera Umno's
Wanita, Youth and Puteri wing division meeting here today. still trying to recycle that old debunked
and proven wrong narrative?
KeloCote 12 Sep 2014 12:10
The pilot is responsible. He was ordered by Ukrainian air-traffic control to fly to higher
altitude, and refused the order. Formally they told him it's because of other planes in the area,
but more likely they knew it was unsafe to fly it being a war zone - and simply didn't want to
admit they don't have control over territory they claim as their own. By refusing the order to
fly higher - the pilot assumed responsibility for flying in a dangerous path. Since the pilot
is dead - the airline is responsible.
Trabecula Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 12:05
Also, the next day the extremely competent and knowledgable Malay minister said:
"Hishammuddin said he was personally confident that flight MH17 was shot with a BUK missile
based on his experience and knowledge as a defence minister. Hence, he advised the people not
to be easily influenced by speculation and rumours being spread in the media social."
I would like to put the emphasis on "personally confident" as well as on the title: "unlikely
shot down by jet fighter".
It's probably jut another "hunch" he had, like the one of MH370 having crashed in the Southern
Indian Ocean... Or in Bangladesh... Or having landed in Pakistan... Or maybe a few miles closer
to Australia. Well done Sir!
Trabecula Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 11:58
Is this Russian, Malay or US propaganda:
NST 7th August:
"KUALA LUMPUR: INTELLIGENCE analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia
Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government
had had something to do with it"
Do you really expect anyone sane and humane to believe any news coming from Israeli media?!
Gosh...
SHappens 12 Sep 2014 11:27
What a timely article and what an empty statement. Most likely, probably, it seems, could be,
looks like.
Conclusion: "It is going to be a long investigation," he said, while remaining cautious about
what results the international investigation might achieve.
Trabecula 12 Sep 2014 11:25
De Jong and his mates: you should read the news straight from NST, not any other "repost" or
reference, be it RT.com or ET.mars. Go back to early August news (4th or 7th, if not mistaken)
and check out their official opinion on the subject. I've been in Malaysia for 2 weeks last month
and though they're pretty careful with what they say - because of they western counterparts -
and they truly blame both sides (this is subject is overhelming there), they have little doubt
that it was shot down by a jet fighter. And this is supported by german and american experts so
be careful with what you are being "fed".
Western media never reported this though western countries only needed a few hours to "choose"
who to blame for this tragic war crime.
DownSouth77 Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 11:08
Firstly a Su-25 could have shot it down...no doubt about that. Its just a matter of if it happened
that way.
I have a question...something I haven't seen mentioned really. while I know aviation (work
in the industry) I have very little knowledge of the BUK missle system...therfore the question.
Why is the cockpit riddled with holes...yet other pieces of the aircraft as almost no holes
in it. Wouldn't it be that if a BUK did it that the COMPLETE body of aircraft would have had similar
amount of damage caused by projectiles? Yet I haven't seen one other piece of the wreckage that
had near the type of projectile damage than the cockpit section. Why is that...for those saying
it was a BUK missile that caused that damage to the cockpit section?
REUTERS - The United States announced more sanctions against Russia on Friday, affecting oil
and defense industries and further limiting the access of major Russian banks to U.S. debt and
equity markets to punish Russia for its intervention in Ukraine.
The sanctions, which for the first time targeted Russia's Sberbank, were timed to coincide
with new European Union economic penalties that included restrictions on financing for some Russian
state-owned companies and asset freezes on leading Russian politicians.
The sanctions could be rolled back if Moscow withdrew its forces from Ukraine and established
a buffer zone along the border among other conditions, a senior U.S. official said.
SocialistPig 12 Sep 2014 11:00
retired Russian army Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok believes the fact that international investigators
have thus far failed to provide conclusive evidence suggests that they have something to hide.
"You can find out what kind of missile was used against a downed plane one day after it was
crashed," the retired colonel told The Moscow Times. During his career, Khodarenok operated S-75
and S-200 air defense systems.
"Each missile type has its own shrapnel imprint. The shrapnel should have been preserved in
the elements of the aircraft itself as well as in the bodies of the victims," he said.
zelazny fintan 12 Sep 2014 10:54
The Malaysian government disagrees with you and has reported that its experts say a fighter
jet brought the plane down by first hitting it with a missile and then firing 30mm bullets into
both sides of the fuselage.
Photos of the fuselage contain unmistakable bullet holes. Anti-Putin people can deny the evidence
and ignore the opinions of the Malaysian experts, but the fact remains that bullets can't travel
30,000 feet into the air and they must have come from a fighter jet.
The USA certainly has known this fact from day 1, as have all of the Nato governments. They
just can't figure out any positive spin, so they have decided to delay the release of the report
for a year or so in the hope the public will forget.
I wonder how much it will cost to make the family members of the dead forget?
Jiri 12 Sep 2014 10:54
If there was any evidence that the Russians or the East Ukrainians were responsible for the
downing of MH17 it would have been made widely available and the maximum political mileage extracted
from it.
Standupwoman -> daveydor 12 Sep 2014 10:53
On this scale, and with so few voices to speak against it - yes. This is the first time I'm
aware of where the US has effectively dictated the script for the entire western msm without even
the Guardian offering a dissenting view.
Since you find my massive 2.26 posts a day so disconcerting, I assume you'd like to drive all
dissent from the comments too.
zelazny -> RoyalBludger 12 Sep 2014 10:50
Those look like large caliber bullet holes to me, and I have seen a lot of bullet holes in
sheet metal.
And I don't know of any rifle in the world, large caliber or small, that can shoot 30,000 feet
or more. None can fire accurately even with the most skilled shooter at more than 2475 meters,
the longest confirmed sniper kill.
So if bullets hit the plane, they must have come from a fighter jet's 30mm cannon.
The Malaysian government thinks this happened, but of course their opinion has no role in the
Nato cover up.
zelazny -> EnviroCapitalist 12 Sep 2014 10:44
Obama has Guantanamo? What equivalent does Putin have?
Obama tortures people and doesn't allow them to have a trial at all in most cases, and if they
get one, they get a secret, military tribunal, in violation of the US constitution.
In his 6 years in office, Obama has pardoned 52 people, despite the fact that US prisons hold
over 2 million.
Putin has pardoned thousands, including his billionaire political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The comments threads on western sites show the massive love of war and mass murder among ordinary
citizens like you, deceived by a life time of high tech propaganda. Western citizens like to compare
those they fear to Hitler, not realizing that the victors in WWII deliberately slaughtered German
and Japanese civilians by the millions. War criminals fought WWII, and some lost and some won.
But all decent people lost in WWII, because since then the US and Nato have turned the world
into a charnel house of war.
flyingdutchman Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 10:43
More usually SU25's carry armour piercing or APHE rounds. These will explode on impact even
with a soft structure. Even allowing a slight delay after encountering an aircraft's skin these
will then detonate leaving a much larger hole.
Simple armor piercing rounds will not explode. APHE rounds will, but with a delay of around
one millisecond or slightly less. Since the round travels at several thousand feet per second
(and won't be slowed down significantly by anything in the aircraft's structure since the rounds
are designed to punch through half an inch of hardened steel with ease) the explosion will only
take place a few feet beyond the aircraft's skin. Also, fragments from the explosion will tend
to be projected forward.
Although aluminium isn't massively strong, it is stressed on an airliner. It's also not usually
followed by empty air.
Beneath the aircraft's skin there are structural parts (stringers and frames) with insulation
in between. The structure is all aluminum, except for very few parts at the front that are reinforced
with titanium in order to better resist bird strikes. Anyway, nothing compared to the stuff the
average 30mm projectile is designed to deal with.
OpiumAddict Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 10:41
no evidence the rebels ever had a working Buk or anyone trained to use it.
definite proof that Ukraine had several working Buks in the area with crews.
dion13 zelazny 12 Sep 2014 10:37
On 13 August, Pravda published a highly plausible version of the tragedy:
"Boeing-777 was downed by Ukrainian MiG-29, expert says"
[...] the Romanian expert believes that it was not a Ukrainian Su-25, as the plane could not
reach the altitude of 10,300 meters and strike the Boeing due to the poor level of training of
Ukrainian flight personnel and technical imperfection of old Su-25. Vasilescu indicates that radars
show Su-25 identically to MiG-29 fighter jet, as the planes have identical reflective surface
area [...] The fleet of the Ukrainian Air Force has fighter aircraft MiG-29 that are capable of
intercepting Boeing-777. The fighters are based near Kiev and in Ivano-Frankivsk.
ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 10:23
An exploding missile would hit the bottom of the plane as it approached and would scatter shrapnel
over the entire plane. The fact is that only the cockpit is heavily penetrated, and from the sides,
both sides (entrance and exit holes are not hard to distinguish), which points to an air assault
targeting the cockpit to disable the pilots.
Since the Ukraine has veto power over publication of the findings, this whole investigation
is a whitewash. Why isn't Russia part of the investigation with veto power? Giving one of the
suspects in a crime the ability to block publication of the findings is ludicrous.
Can someone explain how a missile from the ground would produce both exit and entrance punctures
in the cockpit on the sides? That seems impossible.
This is just a phony investigation, with the lead suspect having veto power.
High resolution photos from the following link show clearly holes which are pushed out and
in. I am not forensic expert but I can tell in from out.
A missile with exploding shrapnel would not produce in and out holes; the only way to get that
result is to shoot from both sides. And a missile exploding would effect the bottom of the plane,
in a random pattern; the holes in the plane are in the cockpit from the sides, both sides.
Take a look: holes punched out, holes pushed in: draw your own conclusions because the investigation
will never reveal this fact, since Ukraine has veto power over the findings being published.
The photos provided show the pilots were targeted, something an ground to air missile could
not do. Also the holes across one of the wings are in a line, such as a machine gun would produce,
not a random explosion. The theory of a missile from the ground cannot explain the photographic/physical
evidence.
Only an assault from the air makes sense once you examine the evidence provided by the photos
Please take a look, especially at the closeup at
http://www.anderweltonline.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/Cockpit-MH017.pdf
which shows holes with raised edges (exit) and holes with pushed in edges (entrance).
ruffsoft 12 Sep 2014 10:04
The nations investigating have signed an agreement not to publish results unless all parties
reach a consensus. If the parties found evidence of Ukrainian responsibility, Ukraine would veto
and it would not be published. This form of censorship makes an independent investigation impossible,
as well as its publication if it were.
I am quite sure that bullets are "high energy objects" but the Western media seems to ignore
that possibility, as it would implicate Ukraine, which has veto power over any publication of
findings.
For me, the clincher is that only the front part (cockpit) of the plane was penetrated----a
missile that exploded would not target the cockpit---and that the holes in the cockpit show both
exit and entrance punctures---something compatible only with being fired on from both sides. A
missile would only penetrate from one side. It is not hard to distinguish an entrance and an exit
hole, as one is push in, the other out.
This investigation is, by agreement, not independent or impartial, since the Ukraine can block
publication of any findings it does not like.
It's just one more piece of the propaganda effort to demonize Russia and thus cover up the
crimes of the Kiev regime
Dunscore -> Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 10:02
However, Russian mass media information proved to be a fake. On September 9, the Dutch
Safety Board published the report, the paragraph 2.5.4 of which says that Ukrainian State Air
Traffic Services Enterprise provided the recording and a transcript of the radio and telephone
communications regarding flight MH17
Just a little tip. Don't ever use anything that comes out of the Kiev offices. It is all
100% unbelievable. All of it. There are so many different agendas by so many groups fighting
each other like cats and dogs, all in the same buildings, that it is no wonder that so much confusion
reigns there.
Dunscore -> Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 09:44
John McCain has taught you well.
You and he are obviously students of the "Shout it loud and shout it again and again" Goebbels
doctrine -- If you are so desperate to put your case, go and join the police investigative team.
You're such a cut and paste expert with carefully selected bits from wikipedia, they will find
you useful somewhere.
There's a flood of misinformation this morning. Much more than normal.
You're louder than you normally are.
Usually McCain orders the whole team out when the yanks have got something that they particularly
want to distract from the public gaze.
Most of your team is talking about the Buk again, sticking to the same old story, so obviously
you are worried that the Dutch will latch onto the truth. Well they have nine months to find it,
so you and your team of parrots will have to work very hard to keep them distracted. Best of luck
!
Given the fact that the steady level flight (in kilometers) above the ceiling is impossible,
How do you KNOW that is true? Do you know every single situation where it might not be true. Are
you an expert ? I don't mean a cut and paste expert..
Keep writing, keep writing... you and your mates have got to keep the dutch police distracted.
!
Keep writing Keep writing !
Bye...
medievil -> Yatvyag 12 Sep 2014 09:38
shot down over the Persian Gulf in 1988 by the SM-2 surface-to-air missile launched from the
USS Vincennes. As a result of the Iranian Flight 655 catastrophe 290 passengers were killed including
60 children. The author emphasizes that after the incident American top officials not only dismissed
all the accusations but blamed the Iranian pilot. However, nearly seven weeks after the tragedy
the Pentagon had to recognize that all the "facts" the American top officials were referring to
in order to shift the burden of responsibility on the Iranians were wrong. Strangely enough, the
Pentagon's 53-page report on the incident "still concluded that the captain and all the other
Vincennes officers acted properly."
Although Fred Kaplan, the defense correspondent of the Boston Globe at that time, pointed repeatedly
to the numerous embarrassing discrepancies in the Pentagon's narrative, the US senior officers
qualified them as inessential. The most shocking fact, revealed in 1992 was that the USS Vincennes
was in the Iranian waters when it shot down the Iranian Flight 655, not in international as the
Pentagon reported in 1988.
"Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was running to succeed Ronald Reagan as president, said
on the campaign trail, "I will never apologize for the United States - I don't care what the facts
are," cites Fred Kaplan and adds bitterly, "Not until eight years later did the US government
compensate the victims' families, and even then expressed "deep regret," not an apology." Medals
awarded While issuing notes of regret over the loss of human life, the U.S. government has, to
date, neither admitted any wrongdoing or responsibility in this tragedy, nor apologized, but continues
to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident. The men of the Vincennes were all awarded combat-action
ribbons. Commander Lustig, the air-warfare coordinator, even won the navy's Commendation Medal
for "heroic achievement", his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire" having
enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure." According to a 23 April
1990 article printed in The Washington Post, the Legion of Merit was presented to Captain Rogers
and Lieutenant Commander Lustig for their performance in the Persian Gulf on 3 July 1988. The
citations did not mention the downing of the Iran Air flight at all.
Денис Панкратов -> fintan 12 Sep 2014 09:31
If you're interested, I would say. And in Washington and in the Netherlands have long known
who shot down the "Boeing". But will hide the truth to the end. Because this really does not fit
into the ongoing today geopolitics.
Geopolitics, as a rule, the subject is extremely pragmatic and cynical. For it not only 200
dead, for her and 200 thousand dead - empty words ...
Dunscore 12 Sep 2014 09:26
A rebel officer told AP after the disaster that the plane was shot down by a mixed team
of rebels and Russian military personnel who believed they were targeting a Ukrainian military
plane.
This is the ENTIRE source for the western case that a Buk shot MH17 down. It is a complete
lie. The officer was never named, the story was never verified. The officer does not exist. Evidence
please, if you disagree?
Canonman -> Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 09:17
That area has been under satellite surveillance for a long time by various US, NATO and Russian
satellites - after all it is a war zone. Rest assured that there will be coverage of that area
by various satellites.
Perhaps you should lay off the personal insults? Or do you get off on being rude or a dick
- 'Rudeboy-1'?
Hansueli LeWillow 12 Sep 2014 09:16
Well, before engaging in wild speculation, why not start from a simple possibility, like a
simple fuck-up by the guys on the trigger? Seems far more likely than any hypothetical planned
shoot down by CIA or anybody else, including Russia.
Dunscore Rudeboy1 12 Sep 2014 09:16
Of course the utter idiots that gave a highly advanced surface to air missile system to a bunch
of idiots are not responsible at all.....it was just a mistake. I'm sure the relatives will understand.
Your master McCain taught his baby trolls well -- But why do we always get the uneducated ones.
Where is all your written evidence for your silly story ? Let's see something on paper and
not just oral bullshit...
JCDavis mraak 12 Sep 2014 09:09
Since it hit the cockpit and not the tail, it had to be fired from the direction where the
plane was headed.
Not true. If it was fired from an aircraft well below the 777, the impact could have had the
same signature. And depending on the guidance system, it could have hit the same area no matter
where it was fired from--
Electro-optical seekers can be programmed to target vital area of an aircraft, such as the
cockpit.
Dunscore Robert Looren de Jong 12 Sep 2014 09:08
nd as such it is consitant with a buk missile
If you can't even spell consistent, why should we pay any attention to wha you say ?
Everyone is suddenly an expert on missile ballistics.
Tell your audience please the source of all your qualifications.
A PhD from Ronald McDonald's University ?
Two german military pilots saw all the wreckage on the crash site and with 30 years experience,
they made a careful detailed explanation over several A4 sides explaining why it was NOT a Buk.
Have you read that ? Why do you contradict that ? Come on, let's have your knowledge on the table
--
McCain would be proud of you, you follow his script so well.
What will you do when your master loses his job at the next US election?
Canonman 12 Sep 2014 08:31
All of this is just speculation.
Question 1: where are the Satellite images of that area at that exact time?
Question 2: where are the audio transmissions between the crew and the flight towers?
Question 3: why did the BBC remove its own segment that was done shortly afterwards where they
had people on record stating that they had seen a jet flying behind if?
Question 4: who ordered the BBC remove its own segment?
Question 5: If the pilots where shot at by a 'jet' as is believed by many - what about the autopsies
of the pilots? Were any done? What did they find.
Question 6: if a BUK missile had taken it down how come there was not a trail from the missile?
These missiles do leave a rather distinctive trial behind them that is seen for kilometers.
Question 7: who ordered the plane to fly lower than was deemed safe for that area?
So many questions and so little facts… Perhaps they questions do not fit the narrative?
michaelantony 12 Sep 2014 08:19
This investigation is a colossal waste of time and money and European taxpayers should demand
an end to it. We all know what happened to the plane: it was shot down by accident while flying
over a war zone where surface to air missiles were in constant use over previous days. None of
the belligerents had an interest in shooting in down: whoever did it mistook it for a military
craft belonging to the enemy. To try to find out which group to pin the blame on serves no purpose
whatever except to further the warmongering agenda of NATO, which is trying to provoke the 3rd
World War with Russia or justify even more crushing sanctions to grind Russia's population into
further poverty. The real culprits for this horrible accident were Malaysia Airlines for flying
over a war zone to save money and the aviation authorities for allowing them to do so. Those are
the heads that should roll.
LeWillow -> psygone 12 Sep 2014 08:07
But you have to ask the question 'why would Putin shoot down a Malaysian passenger plane?
It make no sense and would be completely stupid, and I don't think Putin is stupid somehow.
The CIA on the other hand (and US Govt) would have a lot to gain from shooting down a plane and
blaming it on Putin. They also have previous form when it comes to blowing planes out of the air.
Standupwoman -> daveydor 12 Sep 2014 08:05
Correct. I joined in 2012 to participate in the Bradley Manning conversation. I have an abhorrence
of evil, and the silence of mass media regarding its victims.
What world do you inhabit where such an attitude makes a person 'unreal'?
LeWillow -> daveydor 12 Sep 2014 08:02
"Actually what I find shocking is the bizarre pretence of you people to be real."
By being 'real' do you mean believing everything the Western media tell us and everything the
US Government. Is that what being 'real' involves?
If it is, then you can keep it for yourself.
jdanforth -> Martin Adams 12 Sep 2014 08:01
Apparently it was an entire year before Libya was blamed -first it was Iran. Al Megrahi's alleged
accomplice was found not guilty, and when al Megrahi was granted a chance to appeal his case in
court, he was abruptly released instead.
In the case of Lockerbie, satellite imagery was immediately
provided by both France and the US, and that was in the 1980s!
ChristopherMyers 12 Sep 2014 08:01
They are sooo hoping it was East Ukrainian fighters supplied by Russia, sounding more like a witch
hunt all the time. I wouldn't rule out the Azov Battalion, they were in the area, they have Russian
accents, and BUK's, they murder civilians because they are Russian, like in Odessa. They still
don't know if it was a missile, or if it was an air to air or surface to air, or bullets from
a Ukrainian fighter jet (which would be intent on targeting the cockpit). Forensics though, will
reveal what struck it, then place the blame. Why not wait until then to burn the witch?
Carl Jones 12 Sep 2014 08:00
The preliminary report suggests MH17 was hit by multiple impacts. There are pictures on the
alternative media that shows a section of the plane near the cockpit that was strafed by machine
gun fire after it had been hit by an air to air rocket[s]. The preliminary finding are inconsistent
with a ground to air rocket and their is no evidence to this effect.
Quite simply, this is a cover up.
SaoPaulo 12 Sep 2014 07:56
The mere fact that the United States MSM has dropped this topic like a hot potato (compare
CNN coverage of MH17 with the endless coverage of MH370) and the complete lack of verified NATO
or US or CIA satellite data implies that the Russians were not at fault here.
JCDavis -> palindrome 12 Sep 2014 07:55
Everything coming from the UK and US governments is a lie at one level or another and should
be carefully investigated. But of course there is no one to do that as the press is almost totally
subverted.
palindrome 12 Sep 2014 07:50
he drew comparisons with the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing that took years
to identify suspects.
Excellent comparison, the Lockerbie investigation is a great example of how investigators dismissed
obvious clues as to the true perpetrators and used circumstantial evidence to "prove" that the
Bond villains of the day (Libya) were the culprits.
John Ashton's book lays the evidence for all to see of how everything can
JCDavis JCDavis 12 Sep 2014 07:44
Herbert E. Meyer, Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence under the Reagan
administration--
"If Putin is too stubborn to acknowledge that his career is over, and the only way to get
him out of the Kremlin is feet-first, with a bullet hole in the back of his head - that would
also be okay with us."
krislej Daniel Brown 12 Sep 2014 07:35
You're clearly someone who doesn't have a clue:
SU-25's carry the R-60 air to air missile with a range of 5 miles, they also have a 30mm auto-cannon.
The wreckage of MH17 is strewn with what are more than likely 30mm shell holes, perfectly rounded
and highly unlikely to be fragmentation from a rocket.
SU-25's can also climb to the height of MH17 and stay there for a short period of time before
having to descend.
Martin Adams 12 Sep 2014 07:33
The Lockerbie investigation was subverted for political reasons and the enemy of convenience
was then Libya. Abdelbasset al Megrahi who served 8 years in prison had nothing to do with Lockerbie
and they know it.
GoodmansParadox 12 Sep 2014 07:23
...he drew comparisons with the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing that took years
to identify suspects.
An interesting analogy, considering the suspects identified were fabricated in order to frame
Libya. Considering the case against the two Libyan suspects required they work together, it was
even more notable that only one of them was convicted. So a fabricated prosecution was delivered
a perverse verdict, yet the media still lapped it up and ran with the lie.
Funny how, with the toppling of Gaddafi, we were supposed to be provided with the evidence of
Libyan involvement. Three years and counting...
And now, the same cheerleaders for blaming Gaddafi are blaming Putin. Plus ca change.
kaptenemo 12 Sep 2014 07:20
Could investigators and journalists please also consider the possibility that the Kiev troops
did it? Right now, they should be investigating all leads, not only those pointing to the Eastern
Ukrainians. After all, the Ukrainian military did shoot down a commercial plane in 2001, so another
mistake cannot be excluded out of hand.
fintan -> DrHandley 12 Sep 2014 07:18
The Dutch are under orders to ensure that all the data and any media release places blame
of the Rebels
The Dutch "under orders"? From whom? Have some respect for a democratic, sovereign state that
has lost nearly 200 of its citizens to a murderous attack by vicious terrorists and, I have no
doubt, very much wants to find the truth about how and why it happened.
Standupwoman 12 Sep 2014 07:14
What's possibly most shocking about this is the reiteration of discredited information - the
supposed 'confession' of a rebel (taken massively out of context and heavily denied by the speaker)
and the ludicrous fake audio of the rebel conversation which turned out to have been uploaded
the day before the crash, then taken down again for editing.
I wouldn't be surprised by this promulgation of lies if I found it on social media, but this
is the Associated Press and I'm reading this in a once respected British newspaper. How in the
name of any kind of decency did we come to sink as low as this?
DrHandley 12 Sep 2014 07:12
The Dutch are under orders to ensure that all the data and any media release places blame of
the Rebels. We may talk about conspiracy theories - but in this case it smells like a cover up.
The explosive residue left of the surface of the aircraft would surely indicate the type of weapon
used as most explosives have a set 'signature'.
Standupwoman 12 Sep 2014 07:06
There's no surprise in the fact the solution 'getting most attention' is the one most likely
to discredit the rebels. I'd be more interested to know if they were giving any attention to anything
else.
"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 329 donors have already invested in our efforts to
combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in financial realm. Please join us and participate
via our Tip Jar , which shows how to give via
check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about
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we're doing this fundraiser ,
what
we've accomplished in the last year , and
our second target , funding for travel to conferences and in connection with original reporting. ..."
"... These companies – according to JPMorgan analysts cited by
Bloomberg – have incurred $119 billion in interest expense over the 12 months through
the second quarter. The most ever. ..."
"... last thing ..."
"... As recently as 2012, companies were refinancing at interest rates that were 0.83 percentage
point cheaper than the rates on the debt they were replacing, JPMorgan analysts said. That gap
narrowed to 0.26 percentage point last year, even without a rise in interest rates, because the
average coupon on newly issued debt increased. ..."
"... "Increasingly alarming" is what Goldman's credit strategists led by Lotfi Karoui called this deterioration
of corporate balance sheets. And it will get worse as yields edge up and as corporate revenues and
earnings sink deeper into the mire of the slowing global economy. ..."
"... But it isn't working anymore. Bloomberg found that since May, shares of companies that have
plowed the most into share buybacks have fallen even further than the S P 500. Wal-Mart is a prime
example. Turns out, once financial engineering fails, all bets are off. Read…
The Chilling Thing Wal-Mart Said about Financial Engineering ..."
"... It spelled out in Micheal Hudson's – Killing the Host. Economics and investment banking
wraps itself in the persona as the engine of growth when, in fact, it is the engine of dis-employment,
stagnate wages, declining manufacturing, inflated property prices which raise the cost of food
production and everything else including forcing a majority to spend more of their income on
debt service leaving less for anything beyond subsistence living. ..."
"... "trillions are wasted and misdirected into useless financial "engineering" as
opposed to real world engineering" ..."
"... I read yesterday that less than 6% of Bank financing is now going to real tangible
assets – the balance goes in various forms to intangible goodwill ..."
"... Tony Soprano called it a "bust up" – take over a business and use the brand to skim the
profits, buy goods and services and roll them out the backdoor and declare BK and then buy it
back for pennies on the dollar. ..."
"... 35 years ago, I spent a day at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania with a driver in a rover by
myself watching the Hyenas take down a sick Buffalo culling him out in a gang, working the
animal for hours, as he shuffled along until he fell and ten….. finally ate him in a ferocious
climax. The most fascinating part of the entire trip. ..."
"... Now there is a big fat tax deductible expense, and down the road, "value" is created
when companies are bought for the tax carry forward losses. Win, win win. ..."
"... Is a company that eliminates thousands of jobs via automation or outsourcing worthy of the
public's credit? ..."
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 329 donors have already invested in our efforts to
combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in financial realm. Please join us and participate
via our Tip Jar, which shows how to give via
check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about
why
we're doing this fundraiser,
what
we've accomplished in the last year, and
our second target, funding for travel to conferences and in connection with original reporting.
Yves here. As anyone who has been in finance know, leverage amplifies gains and losses. Big company
execs, apparently embracing the "IBG/YBG" ("I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone") school of management,
apparently believed they could beat the day of reckoning that would come of relying on stock buybacks
to keep EPS rising, regardless of the underlying health of the enterprise. But even in an era of
super-cheap credit, investors expect higher interest rates for more levered businesses, which is
what you get when you keep borrowing to prop up per-share earnings. As Richter explains, the chickens
are starting to come home to roost.
Companies with investment-grade credit ratings – the cream-of-the-crop "high-grade" corporate
borrowers – have gorged on borrowed money at super-low interest rates over the past few years, as
monetary policies put investors into trance. And interest on that mountain of debt, which grew another
4% in the second quarter, is now eating their earnings like never before.
These companies – according to JPMorgan analysts cited by
Bloomberg – have incurred $119 billion in interest expense over the 12 months through
the second quarter. The most ever. With impeccable timing: for S&P 500 companies,
revenues have been in a recession all year, and the last thing companies need
now is higher expenses.
Risks are piling up too: according to Bloomberg, companies' ability pay these interest expenses,
as measured by the interest coverage ratio, dropped to the lowest level since 2009.
Companies also have to refinance that debt when it comes due. If they can't, they'll end up going
through what their beaten-down brethren in the energy and mining sectors are undergoing right now:
reshuffling assets and debts, some of it in bankruptcy court.
But high-grade borrowers can always borrow – as long as they remain "high-grade." And for years,
they were on the gravy train riding toward ever lower interest rates: they could replace old higher-interest
debt with new lower-interest debt. But now the bonanza is ending. Bloomberg:
As recently as 2012, companies were refinancing at interest rates that were 0.83 percentage
point cheaper than the rates on the debt they were replacing, JPMorgan analysts said. That gap
narrowed to 0.26 percentage point last year, even without a rise in interest rates, because the
average coupon on newly issued debt increased.
And the benefits of refinancing at lower rates are dwindling further:
Companies saved a mere 0.21 percentage point in the second quarter on refinancings as investors
demanded average yields of 3.12 percent to own high-grade corporate debt – about half a percentage
point more than the post-crisis low in May 2013.
That was in the second quarter. Since then, conditions have worsened. Moody's Aaa Corporate Bond
Yield index, which tracks the highest-rated borrowers, was at 3.29% in early February. In July last
year, it was even lower for a few moments. So refinancing old debt at these super-low interest rates
was a deal. But last week, the index was over 4%. It currently sits at 3.93%. And the benefits of
refinancing at ever lower yields are disappearing fast.
What's left is a record amount of debt, generating a record amount of interest expense, even at
these still very low yields.
"Increasingly alarming" is what Goldman's credit strategists led by Lotfi Karoui called this deterioration
of corporate balance sheets. And it will get worse as yields edge up and as corporate revenues and
earnings sink deeper into the mire of the slowing global economy.
But these are the cream of the credit crop. At the other end of the spectrum – which the JPMorgan
analysts (probably holding their nose) did not address – are the junk-rated masses of over-indebted
corporate America. For deep-junk CCC-rated borrowers, replacing old debt with new debt has suddenly
gotten to be much more expensive or even impossible, as yields have shot up from the low last June
of around 8% to around 14% these days:
Yields have risen not because of the Fed's policies – ZIRP is still in place – but because investors
are coming out of their trance and are opening their eyes and are finally demanding higher returns
to take on these risks. Even high-grade borrowers are feeling the long-dormant urge by investors
to be once again compensated for risk, at least a tiny bit.
If the global economy slows down further and if revenues and earnings get dragged down with it,
all of which are now part of the scenario, these highly leveraged balance sheets will further pressure
already iffy earnings, and investors will get even colder feet, in a hail of credit down-grades,
and demand even more compensation for taking on these risks. It starts a vicious circle, even
in high-grade debt.
Alas, much of the debt wasn't invested in productive assets that would generate income and make
it easier to service the debt. Instead, companies plowed this money into dizzying amounts of share
repurchases designed to prop up the company's stock and nothing else, and they plowed it into grandiose
mergers and acquisitions, and into other worthy financial engineering projects.
Now the money is gone. The debt remains. And the interest has to be paid. It's the hangover after
a long party. And even Wall Street is starting to fret, according to Bloomberg:
The borrowing has gotten so aggressive that for the first time in about five years, equity
fund managers who said they'd prefer companies use cash flow to improve their balance sheets outnumbered
those who said they'd rather have it returned to shareholders, according to a survey by Bank of
America Merrill Lynch.
But it's still not sinking in. Companies are still announcing share buybacks
with breath-taking amounts, even as revenues and earnings are stuck in a quagmire. They want to prop
up their shares in one last desperate effort. In the past, this sort of financial engineering worked.
Every year since 2007, companies that bought back their own shares aggressively saw their shares
outperform the S&P 500 index.
But it isn't working anymore. Bloomberg found that since May, shares of companies that have
plowed the most into share buybacks have fallen even further than the S&P 500. Wal-Mart is a prime
example. Turns out, once financial engineering fails, all bets are off. Read…
The Chilling Thing Wal-Mart Said about Financial Engineering
Wolf Richter is a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist,
and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at
Wolf Street.
TomDority, October 16, 2015 at 8:01 am
One wonders where all that "investment" goes…pretty much into the CEO's pockets and
investors pockets because banks do not create money by investing in real legitimate capital
formation or producing anything tangible…..i
It spelled out in Micheal Hudson's – Killing the Host. Economics and investment banking
wraps itself in the persona as the engine of growth when, in fact, it is the engine of dis-employment,
stagnate wages, declining manufacturing, inflated property prices which raise the cost of food
production and everything else including forcing a majority to spend more of their income on
debt service leaving less for anything beyond subsistence living.
These trillions are wasted and misdirected into useless financial "engineering" as opposed
to real world engineering….at the expense of a habitable peaceful planet. Soon, I hope, this
dislocation will be corrected. As I have said before, a good start would be to tax that which
is harmful (unearned income and rent seeking) and de-tax that which is helpful – real capital
formation, infrastructure and maintenance of a habitable planet and the absolutely necessary
biodiversity that sustains us.
david, October 16, 2015 at 8:57 am
"trillions are wasted and misdirected into useless financial "engineering" as
opposed to real world engineering"
I read yesterday that less than 6% of Bank financing is now going to real tangible
assets – the balance goes in various forms to intangible goodwill
this is not "useless" from the standpoint of those who direct this game.
Tony Soprano called it a "bust up" – take over a business and use the brand to skim the
profits, buy goods and services and roll them out the backdoor and declare BK and then buy it
back for pennies on the dollar.
the money is used for dividends and buybacks all that money is accumulated by the LBO firms
and management to maneuver the situation / process to the point of the bust up – this time
they are all going simultaneously for the exit even the most high end S&P firm – the HY prices
are deteriorating quickly beyond energy related as % LTV goes higher – before 82′ the LTV of
Fortune Cos. was way below 20% – 35% was considered max –
the same characters / groups will be formed to get to 51% to buy and control the bonds at
20-30% on the dollar in BK and take the assets.
35 years ago, I spent a day at Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania with a driver in a rover by
myself watching the Hyenas take down a sick Buffalo culling him out in a gang, working the
animal for hours, as he shuffled along until he fell and ten….. finally ate him in a ferocious
climax. The most fascinating part of the entire trip.
USA, USA, USA !
cnchal, October 16, 2015 at 9:38 am
. . .Now the money is gone. The debt remains. And the interest has to be paid,. . .
Now there is a big fat tax deductible expense, and down the road, "value" is created
when companies are bought for the tax carry forward losses. Win, win win.
Just Ice, October 16, 2015 at 10:53 am
"Companies with investment-grade credit ratings …"
With government-subsidized private credit creation, the whole concept of "creditworthiness"
is suspect. Example, is Smith-Wesson "credit-worthy" to many Progressives? Yet, it's their
credit, as part of the public, that would be extended should S&W take out a bank loan.
Is a company that eliminates thousands of jobs via automation or outsourcing worthy of the
public's credit?
Earlier this week Putin accused US official of having "mush for brains" after they refused hand
over intelligence about ISIS targets.
He said: "We asked on the military level to give us the targets which they consider to be the
terrorist ones for sure, 100 per cent. But the answer was: 'No, we are not ready to do that'.
"Then we thought and asked another question: 'Then could you tell us where we should not hit?'
Again, no answer. So, what should we do?"
Washington and its allies have suggested Russia is seeking to prop up Bashar al-Assad's regime
rather than defeat ISIS.
But Putin hit back, saying his country wants to "contribute to the fight against terrorism" which
threatens "the whole world".
"... The Spanish ATC guy's posts were real, but he said the trailing fighters left
shortly before MH17 vanished. Presumably they'd been told to get clear. ..."
"... So… the official Ukrainian ministry of the interior had released via their own web site a fake
video-audio product, pretending the downing was done by separatists and it was an after-the-event
conversation… but the Interior Ministry had produced the video file the day before the downing. ..."
"... The Spanish ATC guy's real-time tweets are consistent with this story. He said ordinary military
arrived at ATC first, but then Interior Ministry guys arrived and took over, removing all evidence
tapes. ..."
"... The Kiev government absolutely
and provably self-incriminated. ..."
"... All Western and Kiev claims (official, leaked and 'expert comments') to the contrary since,
have been orchestrated to bury and obfuscate that key evidence. ..."
"... MH17 was downed by a BUK fired by Kiev government forces, intending to down MH17 and claim
the Russians were responsible. US fingers in this scheme can be seen in the selection of an Air
Malaysia plane. ..."
"... Other points: – right after the event, Russian sources reported their
military signals intelligence in the E-Ukraine conflict area had detected a BUK systems targeting
radar activation at the time of the downing. That would be rather unlikely to admit, if they fired
it. ..."
"... Many other points all indicate Ukie government responsibility for this war crime. And the nature
of the Western 'investigation' also shouts of high level awareness of Western guilt. ..."
"... and what about the testimony of a Ukrainian army soldier that he'd seen a pilot return on
the day and time of the downing of MH17, confirming that the boeing had been shot by a Ukrainian
fighter plane? ..."
"... the fact that russia is now conceding that the MH17 was hit by a BUK missile completely changes
the equation for me. we've either been lied to with the expert opinion and the eye witness account,
or the BUK story is a fake. ..."
"... Please note that this Almaz-Antey MH17 field Experiment was done to support their commercial
interests in a court battle to recover damages for reputation and sanctions. It does not necessarily
reflect Russian government position (although it could hardly counter it either). ..."
"... It is a well timed PR 'Buk' at the corrupt and cynical 15-month Dutch insult to their own MH17
dead citizens and the wider global traveling public. ..."
"... I suspect a lot is calibrated end with the fall of Ukraine's nazi Poreshenko regime. One long
cold winter (on a month-by-month pre-payment plan) coming up! ..."
"... Who is conceding? All I have heard in the Almaz-Antey press conference was based on an "if",
without any definite "it was". So, if it was a BUK, then it was an old one, out of use in the
Russian army already 2011. If it was a BUK, it started in the region of Zaroshenskoje, not near
Snezhnoje. ..."
"We all know" – Speak for yourself. As soon as I saw the high-res image of that cockpit side panel,
I knew it had been a missile. There's clear results of a shock wave loaded with fine (down to
dust size) particles. Also those holes were not bullet holes, and they all came from the left
side of the plane. Metal edges bent outwards are due to the shockwave gases arriving just after
the larger penetrators, forcing between the skin layers, and blowing the outer layer outwards
around holes.
The Spanish ATC guy's posts were real, but he said the trailing fighters left
shortly before MH17 vanished. Presumably they'd been told to get clear.
All the "fighter planes shot up and/or fired an air to air missile at it" rubbish has been
disinformation, designed to bury that one damning and war-crimes trial worthy proof the Kiev Junta
(and US puppetmasters) preplanned the event. That was the video released on the Kiev Ministry
of Interior's official web site right after MH17's downing. The video was the 2nd released from
the same source, in a common style. It purported to be an intercepted communication between separatists
and a Russian general, in which they discussed having downed the plane with a missile fired by
separatists.
Analysis of the video's audio (the alleged 'conversation') revealed it was an collage edited
together using short word sequences. A fake. But also a massive mistake – it was reported that
analysis also found the video still contained timestamps from the editing process. It had been
constructed the DAY BEFORE the downing.
So… the official Ukrainian ministry of the interior had released via their own web site a fake
video-audio product, pretending the downing was done by separatists and it was an after-the-event
conversation… but the Interior Ministry had produced the video file the day before the downing.
Proof of prior knowledge of an 'accident' (or act supposedly by someone else) is proof of planning
it.
The Spanish ATC guy's real-time tweets are consistent with this story. He said ordinary military
arrived at ATC first, but then Interior Ministry guys arrived and took over, removing all evidence
tapes.
This is real, but it has been flushed down the memory hole. The Kiev government absolutely
and provably self-incriminated. And by extension, their masters in the US government were certainly
involved in planning too.
All Western and Kiev claims (official, leaked and 'expert comments') to the contrary since,
have been orchestrated to bury and obfuscate that key evidence.
MH17 was downed by a BUK fired by Kiev government forces, intending to down MH17 and claim
the Russians were responsible. US fingers in this scheme can be seen in the selection of an Air
Malaysia plane. More payback to Malaysia for their Trial of Israel for war crimes, and also trying
to ship that stolen US military drone control system to China, on MH370.
TerraHertz
eimar, October 15, 2015
@Terrahertz
Of course there is no unanimity about how MH-17 was brought down.
But 'none' is not just speaking for him/herself.
Check out this RT doc at 12.40: a local witness to a jet directly approaching the plane from
below, followed by a blue flash:
This does not exclude the BUK hypothesis. The pilot may have been instructed to obscure the
real cause, or told to deliver a payload too. Or simply act as a lure to divert the plane into
the missile path.
Or it was a coincidental presence.
But a Ukrainian fighter jet was on the scene.
TerraHertz, October 15, 2015
@eimar That's an interesting documentary, however you should exercise a little more discernment.
These witnesses are not credible, or are speaking of unrelated events. MH17 was flying at 33,000
feet. At that height an airliner is little more than a dot, and a fighter plane may not be visible
at all. No chance of telling which one is 'below' the other if they are near each other. How about
that guy who says he "ran outside to see" then claims he saw the entire sequence? Yeah, so what
made him run outside? As for the lack of sightings of a BUK smoke trail, I'd put that down to
the rainy, cloudy weather. And what was the cloud height anyway? Lower than 33K feet seems likely.
Also the site the Russians claim the missile was launched from is unpopulated fields. Could easily
be no witnesses, especially since the Ukraine military would want to make sure no one saw them
(or lived to speak of it.)
Other points: – right after the event, Russian sources reported their
military signals intelligence in the E-Ukraine conflict area had detected a BUK systems targeting
radar activation at the time of the downing. That would be rather unlikely to admit, if they fired
it.
Plus, MH17 flight path would have put it over Russian territory in a few more minutes, and
Russian ATC expected it. Why on earth shoot it down over Ukraine, if they wanted it down? From
the Russian side there's no conceivable practical motive. The Separatists would have no motive
either, since at that altitude MH17 couldn't possibly be mistaken for a Ukie military flight.
Many other points all indicate Ukie government responsibility for this war crime. And the nature
of the Western 'investigation' also shouts of high level awareness of Western guilt.
What a fantastic summary. Chapeau to Russia. The level of expertise and competence of the Russian
team is incredible. And this video is so well made…
I knew from the beginning that the UkroNazi were behind this false flag. The purpose was to accuse
Russia and support the sanctions. In fact, some of the "evidence" was made-up prior to the "accident".
I also believe that the US was part of it. They may plead "Plausible deniability" but their game
is well known and for one I am not fooled. If it look like a duck…
If the US wants to fight the Russians, I have bad news for the psychopaths.
mbotta on October 15, 2015 · at 4:32 am UTC
guys, so what happened to the expert opinion that the way the boeing was damaged
1) could in no way be done by a BUK missile, and
2) indicated that it had been shot at by a fighter plane?
and what about the testimony of a Ukrainian army soldier that he'd seen a pilot return on
the day and time of the downing of MH17, confirming that the boeing had been shot by a Ukrainian
fighter plane?
the fact that russia is now conceding that the MH17 was hit by a BUK missile completely changes
the equation for me. we've either been lied to with the expert opinion and the eye witness account,
or the BUK story is a fake.
Anonymous on October 15, 2015 · at 9:29 am UTC
Re: "… the fact that russia is now conceding that the MH17 was hit by a BUK missile completely
changes the equation for me."
Please note that this Almaz-Antey MH17 field Experiment was done to support their commercial
interests in a court battle to recover damages for reputation and sanctions. It does not necessarily
reflect Russian government position (although it could hardly counter it either).
It is a well timed PR 'Buk' at the corrupt and cynical 15-month Dutch insult to their own MH17
dead citizens and the wider global traveling public.
Where the MH17 project goes from here is anyone's guess - but in the reputation and credibility
stakes Russian share value is rising and EU/Nato is dropping fast. What is clear, is, any 'win'
by the usual suspects will be slow and at a very high cost.
I suspect a lot is calibrated end with the fall of Ukraine's nazi Poreshenko regime. One long
cold winter (on a month-by-month pre-payment plan) coming up!
Max on October 15, 2015 · at 11:21 am UTC
Who is conceding? All I have heard in the Almaz-Antey press conference was based on an "if",
without any definite "it was". So, if it was a BUK, then it was an old one, out of use in the
Russian army already 2011. If it was a BUK, it started in the region of Zaroshenskoje, not near
Snezhnoje.
"... A 9M38M1 uses what is called proportional navigation. Basically it means it does not tail
chase the target but constantly calculates the future route of the target. By doing so the missile
is able to cut corners and approach the target using the shortest route and thus saving as much
fuel as possible. ..."
"... I'm looking forward to the release of the JIT report and I think it will catalyze an official
response from Russia. Comparing the different versions of events should be indicative of who is
swimming naked. ..."
Blert,
And BUKs use heat seeking missiles. refers to you post yesterday regarding engine heat of a B-777
BUK missile are radar guided.. period.
You can go find the link.. Target detection
The TELAR radar automatically categorizes targets by 3 types: aerodynamics;
aircraft with moving engines with an airspeed of over 100 m / s
ballistic missiles
helicopters
The info is needed for calculation of the trajectory of the missile. The commander can recognize
the unique footprint of a target and when agreed with that this is the target he presses a button
for launch. The onboard computer will do the calculations for guiding the missile.
This article in Russian language has a lot of detailed information on target recognition.
The missile guiding
Once the missile has been launched it is guided by the radar to the target using radar signals.
The radar illuminates the target. The radar return is picked up by the missile. The missile receives
control guidance from the ground using radio signals. This system is called a semi active homing
radar.
Buk, Buk-M1 and earlier versions of Buk-M1-2 and Buk-M2 missile systems uses an Argon-15 type
of the onboard computer. The Argon-15 is able to detect target radar signal (shape, length, reverberations,
envelope and videosignal). Argon-15 does not give to the crew the ability to change target. The
commander must choose target on stage Search, then Argon-15 calculate algorithm Meet Zone, then
indicate Target in zone, commander open fire it all. More information on the Argon-15 here.
When close to the target the seeker head (radar in the missile) will take over from the guidance
of the TELAR and will continue its route towards the target.
The missile has a proximity fuse. This is fed by the radar. When the missile is within range
the proximity fuse will detonate the explosive in the warhead. That will be around 17 meters from
the target.
Proportional navigation
A 9M38M1 uses what is called proportional navigation. Basically it means it does not tail
chase the target but constantly calculates the future route of the target. By doing so the missile
is able to cut corners and approach the target using the shortest route and thus saving as much
fuel as possible.
To intercept high-speed targets like aircraft and missiles, a semi active homing missile must
follow a lead (collision) course. The intercept point is at the intersection of the missile and
target flight paths. The best collision or lead course happens when the missile heading keeps
a constant angle with the line of sight to the target. This course requires missile accelerations
to be only as great as target accelerations. Specifically, if the target flies a straight-line,
constant-velocity course, the missile can also follow a straight-line collision course if its
velocity does not change. But in practice, this ideal situation does not exist. Missile velocity
seldom stays constant. Irregular sustainer propellant burning changes thrust, and therefore affects
speed…
low_integer, October 11, 2015 at 2:40 am
I'm looking forward to the release of the JIT report and I think it will catalyze an official
response from Russia. Comparing the different versions of events should be indicative of who is
swimming naked.
"... which are a mix of bow-tie shaped pieces and diamond shaped pieces, indicate
that it is an older type of BUK missile that their military has not used for a long time ..."
"... Russia has also claimed that the Ukraine military did possess the older type of BUK missile
that corresponds to the fragments found. ..."
"... here in Australia, the news coverage I saw (SBS channel) of the Dutch (JIT)
investigation last night was immediately followed with coverage of the Russian points noted above,
with the manufacturer of the BUK missiles refuting some of the JITs claims after apparently having
done some tests. It was fairly brief however I was surprised to see both sides get airtime. ..."
It is not just whether or not it was a BUK missile, it is also what type of BUK missile it was,
if it was in fact a BUK that brought the plane down. Russia's contention is that the shape of the
fragments found, which are a mix of bow-tie shaped pieces and diamond shaped pieces, indicate
that it is an older type of BUK missile that their military has not used for a long time. I'm
assuming the new type they use also has a distinctive fragmentation pattern, and I'm not sure how
long it has been since they have phased out use of the old type, or if that information has been
made available.
Russia has also claimed that the Ukraine military did possess the older type of BUK missile
that corresponds to the fragments found.
Interestingly, here in Australia, the news coverage I saw (SBS channel) of the Dutch (JIT)
investigation last night was immediately followed with coverage of the Russian points noted above,
with the manufacturer of the BUK missiles refuting some of the JIT's claims after apparently having
done some tests. It was fairly brief however I was surprised to see both sides get airtime.
I have also been hearing that it was reported that passengers may have remained conscious for
up to 90 seconds.
"... Why divert that MH-17 to that routes, while previous planes before MH-17, directed to
other southern routes? ..."
"... Where is the traffic conversations records between the ATC and the MH17? ..."
"... Where is the radar plot of the MH17? ..."
"... Where is the sworn testimonies from the ATC guy in charge of taking care the MH17? ..."
"... The Buk left some nice t-shaped holes in the test fusilage.
None of those were witnessed on MH-17 wreckage and the holes were primarily round. The missile
that hit was closer than the suspended Buk they were testing and was likely an air to air weapon.
You can see the burn marks on MH-17 wreckage... ..."
"... The news today was a joke. Ukraine ordered the plane to fly the course , altitude and speed.
And yet no transcripts from the Ukraine Aviation authority ? why ? ..."
"... and what happened to Carlos the air traffic controller who sent word about military interference
at ATC? ..."
Russian troops use this new BUK-M2 back in 2008. You can check this if you have the DU (depleted
uraniums) fragmented casing, and test them with isotopes methodes. Which for some reasons, the
dutch teams refused to do.
- - -
Again. Russian haters fails to mentioned this.
As of the questions of:
1. Why the ATC not closing the route?
2. Why divert that MH-17 to that routes, while previous planes before MH-17, directed to
other southern routes?
3. Where is the traffic conversations records between the ATC and the MH17?
4. Where is the radar plot of the MH17?
5. Where is the sworn testimonies from the ATC guy in charge of taking care the MH17?
There are alot of questions unanswered. And yet the dutch investigation still release the report.
The New York Times' clumsiness as to its pro-Israel/anti-Russian {and for that matter anti-constitutionalist
and anti-libertarian} propaganda is stunning.
They're either that stupid or that brazen - knowing that Americans are too stupid to parse
misleading rhetoric.
Of course, that's older Americans.
Had I time and inclination, before absurd TPP copyright laws prevent it {from what I gather}
a great web site would be unmoderated, space limited comments on ny times stories.
good questions. why the report? - So companies and citizens can claim financial damages. you
seem to be implying that the BUK-M1 could have been sold on the black market, or provided by clandestine
means. By who? To who? Those are questions that a lot of people hoped would be answered.
The Buk left some nice t-shaped holes in the test fusilage.
None of those were witnessed on MH-17 wreckage and the holes were primarily round. The missile
that hit was closer than the suspended Buk they were testing and was likely an air to air weapon.
You can see the burn marks on MH-17 wreckage...
The news today was a joke. Ukraine ordered the plane to fly the course , altitude and speed.
And yet no transcripts from the Ukraine Aviation authority ? why ?
By Philip Arestis Professor and Director of Research at the Cambridge Centre for Economic &
Public Policy and Senior Fellow in the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge,
UK, and Professor of Economics at the University of the Basque Country and Malcolm Sawyer, Professor
of Economics, University of Leeds. Originally published at
Triple Crisis
Has the financial sector become too large, absorbing too many resources, and enhancing instabilities?
A look at the recent evidence on the relationship between the size of the financial sector and growth.
There has been a long history of the idea that a developing financial sector (emphasis on banks
and stock markets) fosters economic growth. Going back to the work of authors such as Schumpeter,
Robinson, and more recently, McKinnon, etc., there have been debates on financial liberalisation
and the related issue of whether what was relevant to financial liberalisation, namely financial
development, "caused" economic development, or whether economic development led to a greater demand
for financial services and thereby financial development.
The general thrust of the empirical evidence collected over a number of decades suggested that
there was indeed a positive relationship between the size and scale of the financial sector (often
measured by the size of the banking system as reflected in ratio of bank deposits to GDP, and the
size of the stock market capitalisation) and the pace of economic growth. Indeed, there have
been discussion on whether the banking sector or the stock market capitalisation is a more influential
factor on economic growth. The empirical evidence drew on time series, cross section, and panel
econometric investigations. To even briefly summarise the empirical evidence on all these aspects
is not possible here. In addition, the question of the direction of causation still remains an unresolved
issue.
The processes of financialisation over the past few decades have involved the growing economic,
political and social importance of the financial sector. In size terms, the financial sector has
generally grown rapidly in most countries, whether viewed in terms of the size of bank deposits,
stock market valuations, or more significantly in the growth of financial products, securitisation,
and derivatives as well as trading volume in them. This growth of the financial sector uses resources,
often of highly trained personnel, and inevitably raises the question of whether those resources
are being put to good use. This is well summarised by Vanguard Group founder John Bogle, who suggests,
"The job of finance is to provide capital to companies. We do it to the tune of $250 billion a year
in IPOs and secondary offerings. What else do we do? We encourage investors to trade about $32 trillion
a year. So the way I calculate it, 99% of what we do in this industry is people trading with one
another, with a gain only to the middleman. It's a waste of resources" (MarketWatch, Aug. 1
2015).
Financial liberalisation and de-regulation were promoted as ways of releasing the power of the
financial sector, promoting development of financial markets and financial deepening. The claims
were often made by the mainstream that financial liberalisation had removed "financial repression"
and stimulated growth. Yet, financial liberalisation in a country often led to banking and financial
crises, many times with devastating effects on employment and living standards. Financial crises
have become much more frequent since the 1970s in comparison with the "golden age" of the 1950s and
1960s. The international financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the subsequent Great Recession were the
recent and spectacular crises (though the scale of previous crises such as the East Asian ones of
1997 should not be overlooked). The larger scale of the financial sector in the industrialised countries
has been accompanied (even before 2007) with somewhat lower growth than hitherto. As the quote above
suggests there has not been an upsurge of savings and investment, and indeed many would suggest that
the processes of financialisation dampen the pressures to invest, particularly in research and development.
Has the financial sector become too large, absorbing too many resources, and enhancing instabilities?
An interesting recent development has been a spate of research papers coming from international
organisations and many others, which have pointed in the direction that indeed the financial sector
in industrialised countries have become too big-at least when viewed in terms of its impact on economic
growth. (See Sawyer, "Financialisation, financial structures, economic performance and employment,"
FESSUD Working Paper Series No. 93, for a broad survey on finance and economic performance.) These
studies rely on econometric (time series) estimation and hence cover the past few decades-which suggests
that their findings are not in any way generated by the financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the Great
Recession that followed.
A Bank of International Settlements study concluded that "the complex real effects of financial
development and come to two important conclusions. First, financial sector size has an inverted U-shaped
effect on productivity growth. That is, there comes a point where further enlargement of the financial
system can reduce real growth. Second, financial sector growth is found to be a drag on productivity
growth." Cournède, Denk,and Hoeller (2015) state that "finance is a vital ingredient for economic
growth, but there can also be too much of it." Sahay, et al. (2015) find a positive relationship
between financial development (as measured by their "comprehensive index") and growth, but "the marginal
returns to growth from further financial development diminish at high levels of financial development―that
is, there is a significant, bell-shaped, relationship between financial development and growth. A
similar non-linear relationship arises for economic stability. The effects of financial development
on growth and stability show that there are tradeoffs, since at some point the costs outweigh the
benefits."
There are many reasons for thinking that the financial sector has become too large. Its growth
in recent decades has not been associated with facilitating savings and encouraging investment. It
has absorbed valuable resources which are largely engaged in the trading in casino-like activities.
The lax systems of regulation have made financial crises more likely. Indeed, and following the international
financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the great recession a number of proposals have been put forward
to avoid similar crises. To this day, nonetheless, the implementation of these proposals is very
slow indeed (see, also, Arestis, "Main and Contributory Causes of the Recent Financial Crisis and
Economic Policy Implications," for more details).
Now that Michael Hudson's Killing the Host has been available for a while, one suspects
a Picketty-like effect with folks "discovering" that Taibbi's Giant Vampire Squid characterization
of Goldman-Sachs (one of many) wasn't funny.
blert, October 9, 2015 at 5:24 pm
It's a squid that squirts RED INK - onto everyone else.
susan the other, October 9, 2015 at 11:03 am
This is a great and readable essay. Sure sounds like Minsky. And even Larry Summers when he
advocates for more bubbles. And Wolfgang Schaeuble said repeatedly that "we are overbanked." We
just don't know how to do it any other way. When everything crashes it's too late to regulate.
Unless Larry knows a clever way to regulate bubbles.
JTMcPhee, October 10, 2015 at 8:40 am
The Banksters' refrain:
"Don't regulate you,
Don't regulate me!
Regulate that guy over behind that tree…"
MY scam is systemically important!
Just Ice, October 10, 2015 at 3:34 pm
"We just don't know how to do it any other way. " STO
Yet there is another way, an equitable way :) Dr. Michael Hudson himself says that industry
should be financed with equity, not debt.
Leonard, October 10, 2015 at 3:53 pm
Susan
There is way to manage bubbles before they get out of control. This article explains how. Go to
wp.me/WQA-1E
ben, October 9, 2015 at 11:17 am
Wasted resources are way higher than the Vanguard example. They misdirect resources especially
into land and issue new money as debt.
RepubAnon, October 10, 2015 at 11:29 pm
They think that they make their living by "ripping the eyes out of the muppets" – so they're
opposed to regulations which would protect the muppets' eyes.
I look at the financial industry as sort of like sugar for the economy – the right amount is
good for you, but too much will kill you.
Just Ice, October 9, 2015 at 12:35 pm
"The lax systems of regulation have made financial crises more likely."
Actually, it's the near unlimited ability of the banks to create deposits ("loans create deposits"
but also debts) that causes large scale financial crises. And what is the source of this absurd
ability of the banks? ans: government privileges including deposit insurance instead of a Postal
Savings Service or equivalent and a fiat (the publics' money) lender of last resort.
Besides, regulations typically do not address the fundamental injustice of government subsidized
banks – extending the publics' credit to private interests.
There is something very wrong about money creation from loans. I'm not arguing that
this is incorrect, I'm looking at money creation being a burden on the citizenry. I cannot see
how this will end well, because of the asymmetric nature, money creation only benefits the banks,
of the burden of money creation.
"There is something very wrong about money creation from loans."
More precisely, there is something very wrong about being driven into debt by government-subsidized
private credit creation. Source of the rat race? Look no further.
It's the bank-money vs. government money situation. The hysteria over "The Deficit (gasp)"
insures that none of us have cash and must borrow to live. The bankers won.
"It's the bank-money vs. government money situation." zapster
More precisely, who gets to create the government's money since it is taxation* that drives
the value of fiat. But it's an absurd situation since obviously the government ALONE should create
fiat, not a central bank for the benefit of banks and other private interests, especially the
wealthy.
As for the private sector, let it create its own money solutions and my bet is that we'll have
a much more equitable (pun intended) society as a result.
The problem then is taxation. How does one tax someone's income in Bitcoins, for example? How
does one preclude tax evasion? Unavoidable taxes such as land taxes (except for a homestead exemption)
are one possibility.
*As well as the need to pay the interest on the debt the government subsidized banking cartel
drives us into.
*Sigh*. The government alone does control the money supply in a fiat currency issuer. The government
hasn't bothered to do so actively because the only time it DID try doing that (under Reagan and
Thatcher) they found out, contra Friedman, that money supply growth bore no relationship to any
macroeconomic variable. Monetarism was a failed experiment.
Scroll down to "The Idea of Interest". This author posits that back in the (ancient, herding)
day, people lent cattle. I lend you my cow, your bull impregnates her, and I get a part of the
calf.
What the author probably didn't understand, but is known to those of us interested in the history
of metallurgy, is that there was a belief that metals 'grew' - after all, plants grew from the
ground, vines grew from the ground, trees and bushes also grew from the ground. It was not a great
stretch to suppose that metals also grew within the ground, and back in those ancient days they
expected the same kind of 'growth' from metals that happened with agricultural products.
Perhaps if I ever get to retire, I can read Hudson's entire work, and possibly he covers this
topic. But I do think that it is time for the rest of us to rethink the nature of money - particularly
in an emerging digital era.
Thanks for that link. Here is a little nugget that relates to today.
The legal limit on interest rates for loans of silver was 20% over much of Dumuzi-gamil's
life, but Marc Van De Mieroop demonstrates how Dumuzi-gamil and other lenders got around such
strictures - they simply charged the legal limit for shorter and shorter term loans!
Curiously, while mathematics during this era was extraordinarily advanced, the government
failed to understand, or at least effectively regulate the close link between time
and money.
Sound familiar. It's more like the banksters regulate government.
As for compound interest, it seems to be the most diabolical human invention yet, as it infers
exponential growth without limits.
Here is Keynes
discussing compound interest in his speech "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" (1930)
From the earliest times of which we have record – back say to two thousand years before
Christ – down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was no very great change in
the standard of life of the average man living in the civilized centres of the earth. Ups and
downs certainly. Visitations of plague, famine, and war. Golden intervals. But no progressive,
violent change. Some periods perhaps 50 per cent better than others – at the utmost 100 per
cent better – in the four thousand years which ended (say) in A.D. 1700.
This slow rate of progress, or lack of progress, was due to two reasons – to the remarkable
absence of important technical improvements and to the failure of capital to accumulate.
The absence of important technical inventions between the prehistoric age and comparatively
modern times is truly remarkable. Almost everything which really matters and which the world
possessed at the commencement of the modern age was already known to man at the dawn of history.
Language, fire, the same domestic animals which we have today, wheat, barley, the vine and
the olive, the plough, the wheel, the oar, the sail, leather, linen and cloth, bricks and pots,
gold and silver, copper, tin, and lead – and iron was added to the list before 1000 B.C. –
banking, statecraft, mathematics, astronomy, and religion. There is no record
of when we first possessed these things.
At some epoch before the dawn of history – perhaps even in one of the comfortable intervals
before the last ice age – there must have been an era of progress and invention comparable
to that in which we live today. But through the greater part of recorded history there was
nothing of the kind.
The modern age opened, I think, with the accumulation of capital which began in the
sixteenth century. I believe – for reasons with which I must not encumber the present
argument – that this was initially due to the rise of prices, and the profits to which that
led, which resulted from the treasure of gold and silver which Spain brought from the New World
into the Old. From that time until today the power of accumulation by compound interest,
which seems to have been sleeping for many generations, was reborn and renewed its strength.
And the power of compound interest over two hundred years is such as to stagger the imagination.
Let me give in illustration of this a sum which I have worked out. The value of Great Britain's
foreign investments today is estimated at about £4,000 million. This yields us an income at
the rate of about 6 1/2 per cent. Half of this we bring home and enjoy; the other half, namely,
3 1/2 per cent, we leave to accumulate abroad at compound interest. Something of this sort
has now been going on for about 250 years.
For I trace the beginnings of British foreign investment to the treasure which Drake
stole from Spain in 1580. In that year he returned to England bringing with him the
prodigious spoils of the Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth was a considerable shareholder in the
syndicate which had financed the expedition. Out of her share she paid off the whole of England's
foreign debt, balanced her budget, and found herself with about £40,000 in hand. This she invested
in the Levant Company – which prospered. Out of the profits of the Levant Company, the East
India Company was founded; and the profits of this great enterprise were the foundation of
England's subsequent foreign investment. Now it happens that £40,000 accumulating at
3 1/2 per cent compound interest approximately corresponds to the actual volume of England's
foreign investments at various dates, and would actually amount today to the total of £4,000
million which I have already quoted as being what our foreign investments now are.
Thus, every £1 which Drake brought home in 1580 has now become £100,000. Such
is the power of compound interest !
From the sixteenth century, with a cumulative crescendo after the eighteenth, the great
age of science and technical inventions began, which since the beginning of the nineteenth
century has been in full flood – coal, steam, electricity, petrol, steel, rubber, cotton, the
chemical industries, automatic machinery and the methods of mass production, wireless, printing,
Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, and thousands of other things and men too famous and familiar
to catalogue.
What is the result? In spite of an enormous growth in the population of the world, which
it has been necessary to equip with houses and machines, the average standard of life in Europe
and the United States has been raised, I think, about fourfold. The growth
of capital has been on a scale which is far beyond a hundred-fold of what
any previous age had known. And from now on we need not expect so great an increase of population.
This reminds me of the huge fortunes growing at compound interest today.
From Wikipedia: It had an endowment of US$42.3 billion as of 24 November 2014.
If this were to grow at a compound interest rate of 7.2% annually, it would double every ten
years, and in one hundred years would be $43 trillion dollars and in two hundred years $44,354
trillion or $44.354 quadrillion. It's as if Bill and Warren are playing a practical joke on the
world, as their compound interest monster swallows every available dollar.
I wonder what a loaf of bread will cost in two hundred years?
Top heavy might be the marginally better angle to take here. Although I recently left the state
(N Texas, Dallas), Texas banks are being merged or acquired left and right. On some occasions
it is necessary if very small institutions are unable to compete, unable to meet a decent ROE
bogey (6.0% ROE is sorta low), or just unable to fend off progress.
Other occasions the larger regional and national banks can just win on scale.
I have long thought about the banking system as a beating heart. Of course it needs fuel, like
the rest of the body, but when a heart gets larger and larger, and contains more and more blood,
and uses more and more fuel, the rest of the body never fares well.
"Surging bank profits" is never a headline that makes me happy.
The real question is: why was it that the "creation of wealth" had to turn
to the financial sector. IMHO it's because the productive sector is lesser and lesser able
to produce surplus value. So that free capital istn't attracted to it. Of course in the financial
sector there isn't any value created at all.
" IMHO it's because the productive sector is lesser and lesser able to produce surplus
value. "
Yes, because of unjust wealth distribution; the host has finally been exhausted. With meta-materials,
nano-technology, genetic engineering, better catalysts, etc. and with practical nuclear fusion
on the horizon (because of new superconducting materials) mankind has probably never been on the
verge of creating so much value as now but can't because of lack of effective demand, not for
junk but for such things as proper medical and dental care while the wealthy have more than they
know what to do with.
Decades of 'political – solvency' insurance has permitted 'the blob' to overwhelm all.
&&&
If all of society played Poker … would anything be produced ? THAT'S the aspect that has
metastasized. It's not proper to term it the 'financial sector' - gambling// speculation emporium…
now you're talking. When the government chronically intervenes to bail out highly sophisticated
fools…. Jon Corzine is the result. - And he's not even the target of law enforcement !!!!
Financial liberalisation and de-regulation were promoted as ways of releasing the power
of the financial sector, promoting development of financial markets and financial deepening.
To be sure, there are a lot of absurd things about what Washington has done and is currently doing
in Syria.
There's the support for Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, who has used ISIS as an excuse
to wage war on his own people. Then there are the various efforts to arm and train a hodgepodge of
different anti-regime rebel groups (with more embarrassing results each and every time). And just
yesterday we learned that the best idea the Pentagon can come up with now is to
literally paradrop "50 tons" of ammo on pallets into the middle of the desert and hope the "right"
people pick it up.
Of course when it comes to absurd outcomes in Syria, it's difficult to top the fact that
at some point - and you don't have to go full-conspiracy theory to believe this anymore - either
the West or else Qatar and Saudi Arabia provided some type of assistance to ISIS, which then proceeded
to metamorphose into white basketball shoe-wearing, black flag-waving, sword-wielding desert bandits
hell bent on establishing a medieval caliphate.
Having said all of that, things took an even more surreal turn late last month when, after Russia
stormed in via Latakia and started bombing anti-regime targets, Washington was forced to claim that
somehow, Moscow's efforts would be detrimental to the war on terror.
To be sure, there really wasn't much else the US could say. After all, you can't simply come out
and say "well, we need to keep ISIS around actually and we'd much rather them then Putin and
Assad, so no, we're not going to help the Russians fight terror." The only possible spin to
avoid blowing the whole charade up was to claim that somehow, The Kremlin is helping terrorists by
killing them (and not in the whole 72 virgins kind of way).
Now as we've said before, Putin is there (along with Iran) to shore up Assad. There's no question
about that and Moscow hasn't been shy about saying it. But at the end of the day, when you
are trying to wipe out your friend's enemies and some of those enemies are terrorists, well then,
you are fighting a war on terror by default and that's not good for terrorists by definition.
By denying this, the US is effectively arguing against a tautology which is never a good idea, and
we're running out of ways to describe the ridiculousness of it.
Fortunately, Vladimir Putin is not running out of colorful descriptors.
Some of Russia's international partners have "oatmeal in their heads" because they
don't understand clearly that its military campaign in Syria seeks to help the fight against terrorism,
President Vladimir Putin said.
Russia notified the U.S. and the European Union in advance "out of respect" that it intended
to begin airstrikes against Islamic State and other militants in Syria, Putin said at an annual
conference organized by VTB Capital in Moscow on Tuesday. This showed Russia's ready to cooperate
on Syria, while nobody ever warned the authorities in Moscow about their operations, he said.
Putin's colorful phrase, normally used to describe someone as confused, to characterize
relations with the U.S. and its allies on Syria comes amid deep tensions over the Russian bombing
campaign and cruise-missile strikes that began Sept. 30. The EU demanded on Monday that
Russia stop targeting moderate groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. Defense
Secretary Ashton Carter warned that Russia's actions "will have consequences" and the bombing
"will only inflame" Syria's four-year civil war.
Russia "received no answer" when it asked its international partners to provide information
on terrorist targets in Syria, or to say at least where its planes shouldn't bomb, Putin said.
"It's not a joke, I'm not making any of this up," he said.
And while the US insists on says things like this (out just hours ago):
EARNEST: SOME RUSSIAN STRIKES IN SYRIA ARE HELPING ISLAMIC STATE
Put makes a more logical argument. Namely that when one drops 50 tons of ammo from the sky into
the most dangerous place on earth, there's absolutely no way to know for sure where it will ultimately
end up:
U.S. air drops of weapons and ammunition intended for the Syrian Free Army, which
is fighting Assad's regime, could end up in the hands of Islamic State instead, Putin
said.
Yes, they might "end up in the hands of Islamic State" which we're sure wasn't what Washington
had in mind. Oh ... wait...
Silky Johnson
That's kind of shit that happens when you lie to everyone and pretend to be all chivalrous
an shit, but you're really a cuntface that arms monsters.
CClarity
In Ruski it means "mush for brains?
NoDebt
Yeah, I'm guessing it makes more sense in Russian. Where's Boris when we need him for translation?
KungFuMaster
I am not Boris, but the second best thing. This is what Putin said:
So this an idiom which should be translated: They have mess/chaos in their head. Oatmeal is
typical Russian food, but in this case the main characteristic is that oatmeal looks all the same
and this implies that subject cannot differentiate and separate concepts, has a fuzzy filling
in his head when he does not know what he is talking about.
tc06rtw
… I think we must realize politics influenced Mr. Putin's statements; He must be forgiven for
his overly charitable description of the US and its allies.
BALANDAS
Here is my reliable information --- Putin fears that US arms terrorists in Syria.
10/13/2015 14:12:30
Moscow. October 13. Interfax-AVN - Moscow fear that the weapons and uniforms, which the United
States supplied "Free Syrian Army" could fall into the hands of terrorists, said Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
"Who said that the aircraft" Free Syrian Army "deliver ammunition and ammunition. Where is
the" Free Syrian Army "? Do not fall if it all again as it was in the training of personnel in
the hands LIH? Where is the guarantee?" - Putin said at an investment forum "Russia Calling".
"It is only that all this was done, only that it happened just in the United States recognized
that action failed, and now just somewhere to throw ammunition and ammunition. This? This is not
a rhetorical question," - concluded the president.
Paveway IV
The U.S. oatmeal head's psychopathic plan is, was, and always will be to overthrow Assad.
Failure #1: To convince enough Syrians to die for the replacement U.S.- and Israeli-puppet
Syria. Solution: outsource.
Failure #2: Rebrand unemployed al Qaeda head-choppers under the al Nusra banner from Iraq.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia provided the funding, and Turkey and Jordan the training and staging points.
Expect obedience.
Failure #3: Expecting said head-choppers to share your vision of a free, democratic U.S./Israeli
puppet Syria. The head-choppers didn't give a damn about the U.S. plans because they were just
going to keep Syria for themselves. But, hey - if the nut-jobs in the U.S. wanted to set them
up with training and weapons, why not? Uh... 'moderate' rebels? Yeeaaaahh... that's right. We're
'moderate'. Free, democratic Syria? ...yeah, whatever.
Failure #4: Give the FSA TOW-2As for their unwinnable war. Al Nusra reaction: how about some
TOW-2As for US? No? OK... I guess we'll just convince the FSA that have them that they really
need to be in our 'joint opeations room' with the rest of our alliance (or lose their fucking
heads). So, yeah... just keep giving TOWs to THEM.
Failure #5: Expecting the demoralized, crumbling, corrupt FSA left-overs (now effectively Shanghai'd
by al Nusra and various other takfiri head-choppers) to make military progress with their criminal
amphetamine-crazed, civilian-looting head-chopper buddies. At the same time, even more fanatical
head-choppers ISIS evolves and secures a lot of the previous al Nusra funding and arms, pissing
off THEM.
Failure #6: Coming up with the clownishly-stupid plan of USING ISIS to fight Assad since the
FSA and al Nusra plan fell to shit. You would simple bomb ISIS if they attacked a non-approved
target (al Nusra or the FSA) and steer them to desirec targets (Assad and Syrian infrastructure
and oil wells) with ammo, equipment drops and intel. It actually worked for a few months, but
ISIS knew what was going on all along. They've grown tired of the game and have plenty of weapons
and ammo now (between U.S. airdrops and all the shit they seized whenever they roll over another
Syrian army position).
Failure #7: Keeping ISIS financially strong enough to serve as your third army against Assad:
Bomb the shit out of Assad's forces guarding oil and gas installations, then airdrop arms, ammo
and equipment to ISIS so they can take them over and sustain their operations through black-market
means. At least not as blatant as Iraq, where you transfer several hundred tons of gold to your
new central bank in Mosul - days before ISIS simply walks in and takes it without a shot (almost
like it was a planned gold transfer to ISIS).
Failure #8: Failing to anticipate that Putin would do the same thing for now: steer ISIS towards
your FSA/head-chopper forces to kill them FOR you. He's done this north of Aleppo and decimated
Jabha Shamiya, who is now scurrying back to more al Nusra-safe turf. Putin and Solemani have no
plans to enable ISIS long term - just use them for a little short-term al Nusra meat-grinding
until they, themselves are annihilated by Syria and allies.
Failure #9: Failing to understand how quickly the supply lines to Aleppo could be interdicted
by a Russian air campaign. It turns out the resolve of both the Aleppo FSA (for a U.S. democratized
and freedomized Syria) and the Aleppo head-choppers (for their caliphate) are directly dependent
on a continuous supply of amphetamines, USD, weapons and ammo. Interferene with that opposition
Wal*Mart drug and explosives logistics network has created quite a bit of consternation in Aleppo.
The second in command of the opposition coalition there just quit, head-choppers are leaving for
paying jobs and the few FSA left there are heading for Turkey. Aleppo might fall in a matter of
weeks, maybe days - without much opposition at all.
More to come. Waaayyy more to come.
ZerOhead
That's a lot of failures even for a completely inept Obama Administration. Too many failures perhaps?
Paveway IV
Not NEARLY enough. The next step of the Oded-Yinon (or whatever the clownfuckery is called)
plan calls for a civil war in Turkey (Turks vs. Kurds), partitioning it and splitting off of a
corrupt and psychopathic U.S./Israeli-puppet-led unified Kurdish nation. ZATO has hijacked Kurdish
nationalism to force an artificial Kurdistan well before it's time.
The purpose isn't to unify Kurds, it's to create a weak and corrupt Kurdish corridor from the
Mediterranean to Iran. Guess why? Hint: Israel's U.S.-staffed war with Iran, discount stolen Iraqi
oil from Kurdish Iraq for Israel, and the alternative northern route for Qatari gas lines (avoiding
Syria altogether).
See how that all works out? Russian soldiers die in Syria to clean up the U.S./Israeli mess
they created there. At the same time, the Kurds will lose their long sought-after Kurdish nation
to a Ukraine-like Jewish oligarch controlled, chaotic and eternally-squabbling hell-hole of a
country (probably eternally at war with the Turkish partition next to them) kept barely alive
by stolen Iraqi oil (who will also be trying to kill them).
Psychopathy 101: Manufactured death and destruction is like a welcome mat to come in and fuck
over the victims even more.
Poundsand
The hypocrisy is staggering and the entire world knows it. Assad has to go because of what?
They say bombing his own people. Yet across the border Erdogan is actually bombing his own people
and no one says boo. But I guess duly elected minority representation in a democratic country
doesn't really count if you're Kurdish.
The US is losing it's standing in the world and has become a corrupt sheriff in town and don't
think that everyone except those here in America don't know it. As our military and moral authority
wane, it will be picked up by someone else. It always is because there is nothing new under the
sun.
Son of Loki
Neither the Law nor Morality stand in the way of The POTUS!
SofaPapa
Increasingly, even those here in America know it. The US government has minimal popular support
for their actions of the past 15 years in the international stage. They are playing with fire
both at home and abroad.
McMolotov
The establishment wants Hitlery but is quickly realizing she is likely unelectable. Bernie
is a wildcard and uncontrollable, so they need to swing the electorate over to the GOP. Piling
on Obama will accomplish just that. After they find a way to torpedo Trump, look for someone like
Rubio to become the front-runner.
Elections are nothing more than selections by the power elite at this point, but there
still has to be a thin veneer of plausibility to the whole charade.
Squid-puppets a-go-go
lol very good mcmolotov - i think now it is a fulsome measure of the decay and corruption of
the american republic that they need such monumental lengths to provide that thin veneer of plausibility
to any of the available candidates.
Raging Debate
Obama is a disposable puppet. He reminds me of Ensign Benson, that black extra in Star Trek
they send down to that scary, uknown planet. Kirk and Spock go down there afterward.
WillyGroper
PCR's take is O has come to his senses on neoCON fail from that interview.
REALLY? Eye don't think so.
bunnyswanson
USA/Israel having been bombing Syria for years. Why continue now when Russia is on it? Especially
since ISIS is Israel stealing land again, gas more specfically. Like O said, why bankrupt your
nation for one ally.
Yttrium Gold Nitrogen
By "oatmeal" he (Putin) probably meant Russian "kasha", which when used figuratively means
something like "unordered mess", when things are so intermixed as to be indistinguishable from
each other. It also can be used to describe a messy, unclear, volatile situation. I believe that
correct translation would be "muddleheaded", someone who is unable to think with clarity or act
intelligently.
gregga777
For more than two decades the politicians and bureaucrats, holding elected and appointed offices,
in Washington have uniformly despised military service and wouldn't be caught dead wearing a real
uniform in the U. S. Armed Forces. [They had "better" things to do for their lives than serving
in the military, to quote one former V. P.]. They uniformly lack the personal military experience,
to create the necessary context needed for understanding, to judge the desirability of diplomacy
where the use of military force is the last resort, not the first resort.
For those that doubt Qatari gas is not a component (if not the primary reason) for removing
Assad we have this from Erdogan...
"Assad, refusing the transit of Qatari gas and becoming a potential competitor in the European
market, would have to be be eliminated."
That doesn't dismiss Isreal's goals of weakening a regional enemy and grabbing more land as
a catalyst as well.
The Indelicate -> spyware-free
Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.
You don't build a pipeline through a war zone. You certainly don't spend billions in lieu of
working around [look at a map]. And the US and Israel are not helping fucking Qatar send gas to Europe. That's Israel's job.
Each regional player has their own motivations behind attacking Assad. Turkey & KSA could care
less about Isreal's intentions but the removal of Assad serves all their needs.
The Indelicate ...
"The great danger of faking your ability to do something in the public square is that someone
with an actual desire to the job you are pretending to do might come along and show you up." This is what has just happened to the US in Syria with the entrance of Russia into the fight
against ISIL. And as is generally the case with posers caught with their pants down, the US policy elites
are not happy about it.
You see, the US strategic goal in Syria is not as your faithful mainstream media servants (led
by that redoubtable channeler of Neo-Con smokescreens at the NYT Michael Gordon) might have you
believe to save the Syrian people from the ravages of the long-standing Assad dictatorship, but
rather to heighten the level of internecine conflict in that country to the point where it will
not be able to serve as a regional bulwark against Israeli regional hegemony for at least another
generation.
How do we know? Because important protagonists in the Israelo-American policy planning elite
have advertised the fact with a surprising degree of clarity in documents and public statements
issued over the last several decades.
The key here is learning to listen to what our cultural training has not prepared us to hear.
In 1982, as the Likud Party (which is to say, the institutional incarnation of the Revisionist
Zionist belief, first articulated by Jabotinsky in the "Iron Wall" that the only way to deal with
"the Arabs" in and around Israel was through unrelenting force and the inducement of cultural
fragmentation) was consolidating its hold on the foreign policy establishment of Israel, a journalist
named Oded Yinon, who had formerly worked at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, published an article
in which he outlined the strategic approach his country needed to take in the coming years.
What follows are some excerpts from Israel Shahak's English translation of that text:
"Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab
world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track.
The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as
in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution
of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall
apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present
day Lebanon…."
Indelicate, look at his youtube , no need for sarc you,re on the same page
jtg
"Oatmeal in their heads", an apt description of the 'indispensable and exceptional' lunatics
in the West. Why is it that to find a clear thinking leader I have to listen to Putin? Why is it that the West is now the axis of evil?
he didn't literally say oatmeal - he basically said 'mush for brains'. Of course, he's calling them stupid, but he knows they are deliberately evil. But it is easier to fool people about America the white knight than it is to convince them
they've been fooled. No matter how much evidence there is that this war was planned long ago.
Actually you often find that evil people are also stupid. Psychopaths are not generally noted
for their intelligence. They're often charming, manipulative and great liars with enormous egos,
but intelligent is not a requirement. Which is a problem where you have an electoral and corporate
governance systems which consistently puts people who are narcissists and socialized psychopaths
into positions of power. They don't have the real intellectual horsepower to do the job, though
of course they think they do, and often their sycophants do also.
"... Investigators estimated it took the center and rear parts of the airplane 60 to 90 seconds to
reach the ground after the blast. Other, lighter parts would have taken longer, the report
said. ..."
The warhead - launched 33,000 feet below in the Ukrainian countryside - exploded less than one
yard from the aircraft's cockpit, the Dutch report said.
A split-second later, hundreds of "high-energy" fragments pierced the fuselage and the shrapnel
instantly killed the two pilots and one crew member inside.
There was no mayday call or attempt to maneuver, the report noted. The cockpit voice recorder
stopped abruptly at the point of impact.
Image: Dutch Safety Board Issue Their Findings On The MH17 Air Disaster
The explosion also caused the cockpit to instantly separate from the rest of the aircraft.
After that "instantaneous separation," the rest of the plane continued to fly for more than five
miles before breaking into further pieces, according to the report.
The center part of the airliner traveled beyond the rear section and came to rest upside down
after hitting the ground. "Parts of the wreckage caught fire," the report added.
Investigators estimated it took the center and rear parts of the airplane 60 to 90 seconds to
reach the ground after the blast. "Other, lighter parts would have taken longer," the report
said.
The debris field was more than 20 square miles.
... ... ...
Investigators used paint to trace the missile
Ukraine and its Western allies have long alleged that pro-Russian rebels fighting in eastern
Ukraine brought down MH17 using a Russian-made missile system - a claim Moscow staunchly denies.
While Tuesday's report apportioned no blame, it was the first confirmation that the airliner was
shot down using the BUK missile launcher - a Russian-made system.
Investigators came to this conclusion by analyzing a number of minute details.
A 2.3-millisecond noise was recorded on the cockpit's voice recorders before the system stopped
working. By triangulating the signal, experts were able to show that it originated outside the
aircraft.
Their conclusion was also based on "bow-tie"-shaped fragments found inside the bodies of the
flight's crew members that were consistent with a 9N314M missile launched as part of the BUK
system.
The Dutch team that compiled the report also based this conclusion on "explosive residues and
paint" that were found on some of the fragments
The Dutch board's Tuesday announcement followed a report by Buk's Russian manufacturer,
Almaz-Antey, that contradicted the findings. The company said the damage patterns on MH17 did not
match those it found in its own blast tests, Reuters reported.
"... At the same time Russias Defense Ministry made public satellite images of the area, taken
several days prior to the crash. The satellite pictures showed Ukrainian army positions on three
days before the crash, and a BUK missile launcher could be spotted there. But on the day of the
crash, it had moved somewhere else. The question is why – and where it had gone? ..."
"... In June 2015, Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey presented the results of its own probe
into the causes of the MH17 crash. Looking into the option of a surface-to-air missile downing
the Boing-777, experts stressed that it could only have been caused by one of the missiles from
an older modification of the BUK missile system, namely the Buk-M1 - the type of the weapon the
Ukrainian army is equipped with. The Russian army uses modern and later BUK missile systems. ..."
"... "the Sukhoi jet brought down the civilian
plane and ours brought down the fighter jet." ..."
"... "They decided to do it this way, to look like we have brought down
the plane." ..."
"... a documentary crew making a film about the MH17 catastrophe has
actually proven them wrong, staging an experiment and taking an Su-25 to a height of 11,880 meters
– with a pilot wearing an oxygen mask. ..."
The Dutch Safety Board delivered a preliminary report
about a year ago, concluding that flight MH17 broke up in mid-air and came down after being hit
by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the plane from the outside and ruptured
the fuselage. The report did not mention where those high-energy objects came from.
The first theory maintains that the MH17 flight was downed by a surface-to-air anti-aircraft
missile. It is considered by many as the most likely theory and one that's been widely cited in
the media. The only question is who did it.
The West and Ukraine claim the rebels shot the plane with a Russian BUK missile. In the framework
of this theory, a YouTube video of a BUK weapons system with one rocket missing being transported
somewhere in Ukraine just hours after the crash was presented as a smoking gun, claiming that
the missile system was sneakily cleared out of Ukraine into Russia.
But some local bloggers identified the location as the Ukrainian town of Krasnoarmeysk, which
was under control of the Kiev forces at the time.
The fact that the video emerged online suspiciously quickly, was followed by lots of so-called
social media evidence, and is almost impossible to authenticate, only fueled suspicions.
Theory #2: 'Ukrainian BUK missile'
At the same time Russia's Defense Ministry made public satellite images of the area, taken
several days prior to the crash. The satellite pictures showed Ukrainian army positions on three
days before the crash, and a BUK missile launcher could be spotted there. But on the day of the
crash, it had moved somewhere else. The question is why – and where it had gone?
In June 2015, Russian arms manufacturer Almaz-Antey presented the results of its own probe
into the causes of the MH17 crash. Looking into the option of a surface-to-air missile downing
the Boing-777, experts stressed that it could only have been caused by one of the missiles from
an older modification of the BUK missile system, namely the Buk-M1 - the type of the weapon the
Ukrainian army is equipped with. The Russian army uses modern and later BUK missile systems.
Theory #3: 'Air-to-Air Missile'
Another theory is that Flight MH17 may have been shot down from the air.
Russia's Investigative Committee (IC) has been conducting its own investigation into the crash.
On June 3, the Committee identified the key witness to the MH17 crash as Evgeny Agapov, an aviation
armaments mechanic in the Ukrainian Air Force. Agapov testified that on July 17, 2014 a Ukrainian
Sukhoi SU-25 jet aircraft piloted by Captain Voloshin "set out for a military task" and
returned without ammunition. Agapov implied that an air-to-air missile was missing and claimed
he overheard Voloshin say to his colleagues that some plane was "in the wrong place at the
wrong time."
Also, in a video shot by Ukraine's anti-government militia when they arrived at the crash site
immediately after the catastrophe and released by an Australian broadcaster almost a year after
the tragedy, one important part was largely ignored.
The video, shown by News Corp Australia, is a short, 5-minute clip made from an original video
17 minutes long, but the channel published online a full transcript of the original version.
The transcript cited the rebel commander as saying "the Sukhoi jet brought down the civilian
plane and ours brought down the fighter jet."
Later, the same person says once again that there were two planes shot down, and another voice
in the background says, "They decided to do it this way, to look like we have brought down
the plane."
Those who oppose the theory say the Sukhoi Su-25 close support fighter jet spotted in the skies
at the time of the incident cannot reach a height of 10,000 meters, where the Malaysian airliner
was at cruising altitude. But a documentary crew making a film about the MH17 catastrophe has
actually proven them wrong, staging an experiment and taking an Su-25 to a height of 11,880 meters
– with a pilot wearing an oxygen mask.
The report coming out Tuesday will be technical in nature. Its goal is to specify how the plane
was brought down, not to place blame on any side. This is the responsibility of the criminal probe,
which is still ongoing.
Few meetings ever started with dimmer prospects for success than the recent meeting between Presidents
Obama and Putin.
The real call for the meeting stemmed from the EU refugee crisis. With a human catastrophe brewing
in Europe and the Middle East, EU leaders are urgently demanding that the U.S. and Russia set aside
their differences and begin to work together in an effort to resolve the Syrian conflict, the major
cause of the massive movement of people seeking sanctuary.
Now, U.S./EU leaders are no longer insisting on the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
from office as a pre-condition to negotiations over a new government, although the U.S. continues
to insist that al-Assad's removal
become part of any final settlement.
But how can such fundamental differences be set aside when the two sides can't even agree on the
enemy they're fighting? The U.S. and its allies have defined the Syrian conflict as a civil war against
a despotic regime. The Russians define the conflict as an invasion by foreign Islamic radicals, paid
and supported by U.S.' Middle Eastern allies.
The EU has made its demands clear: solve the problem, we don't particularly care how, but it has
to be done quickly. From that point of view, the U.S. and Russian leaders have little choice but
to answer the call.
Russia is attempting to form and lead a
UN authorized coalition against ISIL, the radical jihadists' adversaries that conquered large
parts of Syria and Iraq, while threatening to engulf the entire region.
Obama has stated publicly that he
welcomes help
from Russia and Iran in the fight against radical jihadists, ISIL, in Syria, while still insisting
that al-Assad must go. On their side, the Russians have made no secret of their strong objections
to NATO-led regime change, citing the results of failed states in Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.
In a recent New York Times article, an Administration insider stated that the President believes
Syria is a lost cause, one that U.S. military presence could only worsen.
Obama has also shown little reluctance to lead from behind, when supporting NATO partners, particularly
with a U.S. public largely opposed to America's military engagement in any further Mideast wars.
But Russia is not NATO, and it's clear that the U.S. has no intention of following the Kremlin's
lead in Syria, as its veto of the Russian coalition proposal at the UN Security Council clearly shows.
Adding to that was the
United States'strong condemnation of the Russian air attack on its first day of operations in
Syria.
The urgency of the moment favors cooperation, while geography gives Russia major advantages in
leading the fight. Russia's relationship with Iran, already fighting on the ground in Iraq, with
its ally Hezbollah fighting in Syria, provides Russia with a readymade army to complement its air
attacks.
With the Russians initiating air strikes against ISIL in Syria, the great fear of world leaders
is that an accidental collision between opposing U.S. and Russian forces raises the risks of war
between the two nuclear powers.
While both sides deny any intent at military collaboration or sharing of military intelligence
in Syria, the two Presidents have agreed to meetings of their military leaders, ostensibly aimed
at reducing the risk of accidental conflicts between them. How that can be done without shared military
intelligence about troop movements, and planned air attacks remains a mystery.
Adding to the confusion is the increasingly cordial meetings between Russian and Saudi leaders.
Many believe that the Saudis, and their Gulf Kingdom partners, hold the key to resolving the conflict,
as the major backers of the 'moderate Islamic' rebels fighting the Syrian Government forces.
The Saudis have largely refrained from criticizing the Russian military buildup in Syria, even
though it bolsters the Assad regime, and the Kingdom continues to hold its cards close to its vest
regarding their position on the new Russian military initiative in Syria.
At the same time, there were conflicting signals in regards to the relationship between Iran and
Russia. Reports
surfaced in late September that the two countries, along with Syria and Iraq, were coordinating
military efforts against the ISIL. But at the UN meeting, Iran's President Rouhani made the surprising
statement
that Iran saw no need to coordinate military efforts in Syria, with the Russian goal to support its
embattled ally in Syria, while Iran's goal is eradicate ISIL.
It's widely recognized that since the Iran nuclear deal, Iran and the U.S. have sought to move
closer in other important areas. Still, Rouhani's UN statement seemed to belie the recent agreements
between Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria to build an information center in Baghdad to share battlefield
reconnaissance against ISIL.
That also falls in line with the new agreement with Iran, Iraq, and Syria to provide an air corridor
for Russian military flyovers to Syria for Russian fighter planes and transport aircraft.
To observers, these agreements certainly smack of military coordination with Russia. Iran's need
to distance itself from Russia seems to be made with an eye on the U.S., where hardline Presidential
candidates threaten to tear up the nuclear agreement.
The highly charged political atmosphere in the U.S., in the midst of a Presidential election,
only adds to the fog of war in Syria, forcing public denials and secret agreements where there needs
to be utmost clarity, making military cooperation in Syria almost impossible, while raising the risks
of accidental conflicts between so-called partners.
What then of western sanctions against Russia? In the eyes of the west, the Syrian conflict is
beginning to eclipse Ukraine in importance. The U.S. seems satisfied to leave the Ukraine issue to
Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine for settlement.
The EU is most likely to be the first mover to ease sanctions, realizing, as a
number of EU leaders have stated, that it is fundamentally incompatible to rely on Russia's military
might while starving the Russian economy.
In January, the EU sanctions are set to expire, requiring a unanimous vote of all member states
for extension. The odds are rising that the EU will allow sanctions to expire.
If so, major global business will once again flock to Russia. That would include the return of
major western energy companies that have played a critical part in Russian energy development. Once
that starts, it will become far more difficult to reverse the momentum or re-impose sanctions.
Given the political atmosphere in Washington, it's clear the U.S. will leave its sanctions in
place.
Sam Kanu, October 7, 2015 at 5:31 am
Given the political atmosphere in Washington, it's clear the U.S. will leave its sanctions
in place.
Here you mean "Given the political instructions to Washington from Tel Aviv". I don't see any
general feeling in the American people that demands ongoing conflict with Iran. This is not politics
at all – just pure old tail wagging the dog.
JeffC -> Sam Kanu, October 7, 2015 at 11:18 am
Sanctions against Russia, not Iran.
Older & Wiser, October 7, 2015 at 6:48 am
The un-named 1800 lb Mr. and Mrs. Gorilla couple in the room are oil & gas.
Pipelines anyone ?
Massinissa, October 7, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Are there really pipelines in Syria? I thought it was through Iraq and Turkey.
ambrit, October 7, 2015 at 7:13 am
Given Russias' long term relationship with Syria, I'm bemused that any Neo of any stripe could
with a straight face suggest that the Russians would abandon the Syrian Government to a bunch
of Western backed wreckers.
Maintaining a foothold in the Middle East is basic Grand Strategy. America does it with Israel,
so Russia does it with Syria.
In the long run, the Middle East is beginning a shake up. The post WW1 borders were incompatible
with the ethnic groupings of the region. Now those old 'drawn on a map' borders are being broken
apart and the pieces reassembled. This process can take years or decades to work out. The time
frame depends on how 'responsible' the Great Powers are in dealing with the realignment process.
Do notice the framing of the issue in the MSM. "Irresponsible Russia" and "Assad Must Go" are
everywhere proclaimed. Like the magicians they are, the MSMs rely on misdirection to try to pull
off the 'trick.' While the West tries to browbeat the Russians, the Russians are persistently
acting in their, and in the Syrian Governments, perceived best interests.
On the air front, the Russian "incursions" look to be standard battlefield intelligence work.
Send a plane or two 'over the border' and see what sorts of anti air radars 'lock on' to your
aircraft. This is something any competent air commander would want to discover. This is also a
thinly veiled threat to the West; "Look! Anyone can play this game!" The basic point being; there
is no such thing as a 'no fly zone,' if you are willing to fight.
The Russian message is basic; "Put up, or shut up."
NotTimothyGeithner, October 7, 2015 at 9:05 am
The post WWI borders are fairly similar to Ottoman administrative districts. The Kuwait
city-state answered to the governor of Baghdad within their framework. The issue has been foreign
powers using sectarian ties to divide the little people from cooperation which was achievable
under the Sultan for 500 years. Even Hussein found the Shiites to be exceptionally loyal during
the Iran-Iraq War.
The rise of the Saudis, allowing the Israelis to knock over Lebanon and run an apartheid state,
and supporting oppressive regimes which would have fallen or reformed (pretty much all the Gulf
states which also have ancient borders) are major issues. There have always been states centered
around the modern cities (Ur and Babylon were replaced by Baghdad) or provinces. I believe
the creative borders argument was always a "White Man's Burden" excuse to justify control. "Professor
Scott, why do they fight in the Middle East?" Excuses about unfortunate cartography sound better
than "I needed to build a railroad and did the want to pay the locals, so I cooked up a rape story
in one village, handed out guns, and slaughtered the adult males in the other village."
On the other hand, Africa was carved up bizarrely based on rail and ship movements.
todde, October 7, 2015 at 8:11 am
KSA claims Assad must go and I doubt they will support Russia.
Who is supporting IS? I find it hard to believe they can maintain armed conflict on several
fronts without a state backer.
Where are the 10s of billions of dollars in turkeys central bank in accounts called unknown
foreign sources and errors and adjustments?
Iran will support Assad regardless of American actions.
blert, October 7, 2015 at 5:54 pm
Two factors.
Iran was using Turkey as a front, Ankara collected its 'cut.' Turkey was laundering monies
from the Gulf, too, probably Golden Chain funding for the fanatics in Syria. Erdogan has more
side action than Rick's Cafe American.
Eureka Springs, October 7, 2015 at 9:02 am
Madness R U.S. US, Saudi, Turks and Israeli's must be held at bay at the very least. It's
(Russia, Iran, Syria) who are the only entities resembling a possible humanitarian, rule of law
base of action now or possibly working towards that kind of end game.
That's how low we are, R or D, … the creators and perpetrators of al Q and all of their newly
named lackeys doing our dirty work continuously since the 1980's. It's not impossible to know
who we are and what we have long done… Reading Obama's words and Putin's it is clear Putin
is being far more honest and consistent in both action and words.
Maybe we should stop blowing up hospitals and imprison leaders who order or even allow it to
happen. Nah, there are too many unarmed citizens in wheelchairs who must be shot.
blert, October 7, 2015 at 6:02 pm
Bin Laden has gone on record - time and time, again - denouncing your thesis. He never needed
American funding - ever. He would never, ever, grovel to the kafir.
It's only recently that 0bama started funding AQ's front organs, al Nusrah inparticular. BOTH
ISIS and al Nusrah are joined at the hip and are al Qaeda fronts. They only had a falling out,
circa 2011.
The FSA is a total fiction. It's a Western media construct. Syria is a fight between brutal
Assad and two feral al Qaeda fronts… that can't be controlled. The UK, US and Jordan trained most
of ISIS' cadres in the Jordanian desert back in 2011-12. They then went rogue. That (mostly Jordanian)
force is still the dominant core of ISIS. Our crass media is complicit in covering up a reality
that the rest of the planet is hip to.
Eureka Springs , October 7, 2015 at 8:07 pm
Agree with you after your first three lines. I guess those shoulder fired missiles which al
Q used to take out Russian helicopters in Afghanistan during the '80's were Costa Rican made and
supplied.
Massinissa, October 7, 2015 at 8:29 pm
So Bin Laden was actually giving money and guns to Zbigniew Brzezinski instead of the other
way around?
You have seen that famous photo of Bin Laden and Zbigniew Brzezinski right? Just google it.
A retired Army Colonel who served under Colin Powell actually says he's afraid of a future Israeli
false-flag operation that will start a US war with Iran
– move the cursor to 15 mins...
Steven, October 7, 2015 at 11:10 am
Somewhere I remember reading an analysis of the Syrian conflict along the following lines:
It does indeed involve geopolitics – with the aim being to replace Europe's dependence
on Russian oil and gas with that from U.S. Middle-eastern 'allies'. To do that it is necessary
to build a pipeline across Syria – and insure the Syrian government is firmly in the pocket
of the U.S. and its allies.
Without wishing to denigrate the influence of AIPAC, this conflict has far more to
do with preserving and possibly extending US global hegemony (with a continuing full-employment
program for the country's Congressional military-industrial complex) than it does Israel's
inordinate control over US foreign policy. All the blather about democracy vs. dictatorship
and/or Sunni vs. Shia vs. Sunni is just offal fed to the cannon fodder used by powers great
and small to get it to sacrifice itself for their ambitions.
Like ambrit said, this is just "basic Grand Strategy". It is way past time for US 'leaders'
to recognize the full spectrum dominance they enjoyed in the aftermath of WWII was (charitably)
an accident of history and come to terms with a multi-polar world and the concept of collective
security to which they gave so much word of mouth to a population disgusted with the carnage
and destruction of the second "war to end all wars".
Hespeler1, October 7, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Steven, Pepe Escobar has written extensively about the "pipeline wars" ("pipelinestan"),
the Empire is trying to starve Russia's finances in part by bypassing Russia's pipelines. Greece
was pressured into refusing to be the Turkish Stream's terminus and distribution hub for Southern
Europe. We all know how much they needed the revenue from that, but TPTB said no. Grand Strategy=break
up Russia, steal her resources, put pressure on China. I fear that the Empire won't stop until
they accomplish this, or are buried.
OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL, October 7, 2015 at 12:11 pm
Sometimes things are just so obvious. US "veto of the Russian coalition proposal at the
UN Security Council". Could be because the US wants to lead a bigger, better coalition, maybe
ours will include Samoa or something. Or, um, duh, could be because US doesn't really want to
fight ISIS since that's our dog in this fight. Funny how a few days bombing by Russia has had
a real impact on actual ISIS fighters…whereas US bombing tends to be on stuff like bridges and
power plants and hospitals that hurt Assad more than they hurt ISIS.
I mean how bleeding obvious when we get John McCain high fiving ISIS…and our grand plan
was to find "moderate" maniacs that would do our bidding. "OK everybody, form a line, if you're
an extremist take the T-shirt on the left, if you're a moderate take a T-shirt on the right".
That strategy has worked out so well for us in the past, we spent $500M and trained precisely
"4 or 5" guys.
Is it not most edifying that Iraq is now apparently allowing Russian cruise missiles to fly
over its territory, or at least not objecting? (Not that Iraq could do much about it…)
Harry, October 7, 2015 at 5:20 pm
Iraq is part of the Russian coalition as well as China and you probably do know that Iraqi
prime-minister already made a statement that he would not object against Russians decimating ISIS
on the Iraqi territory. And look, oil prices are already going up – that's what Putin really needed
and this is one of the eight reasons why he started a war in the Middle East.
NotTimothyGeithner, October 7, 2015 at 8:52 pm
Started a war? You do realize training a day arming rebels is an act of war even if Congress
hides the funding in the classified budget or if it's done by the CIA instead of corporate approved
soldiers. The U.S. government has started numerous wars without Congressional approval, mostly
because Congress is still afraid of elections. Russia is allied with Syria. If anything Putin
has shown remarkable constraint.
Synoia, October 7, 2015 at 1:06 pm
There are three sides to Syria:
1. New Caliphate – Includes Turkey & Saudi Arabia – Look at a map and think contiguous empire
-ISIS is their tool.
2. US dislike of Assad, and allied with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but dislikes New Caliphate
and ISIS.
3. Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah etc, dislike New Calipahe, becue of potential threat to Russia
from Muslim arc from Iran through to China (the Stans).
Which leaves the US's allies in direct opposition to the US' goals, and leads to lies, deceit
and deception from parties (1) and (2).
The role of ISIS is to destabilize Syria and Iran, to create an opportunity for Turkish Troops
(500,000 man army), and Saudi money to enter, the region "to keep the peace," thus furthering
their imperial ambitions.
The US is trying to eliminate Assad, but not enable a new Caliphate, and undermine Russia's
and Iran's influence in the area, because Oil and exceptionalism (for exceptionalism see collective
ego, or stunning arragance).
Russia and Iran see the solution to a New Caliphate as Assad in power, and a weakening of US
influence.
aka: Quagmire
NotTimothyGeithner -> Synoia, October 7, 2015 at 8:56 pm
The U.S. government's side* is childish at best. The only real plan was Sunni elements
of the army would assume power when Assad was removed from power with a little Saber rattling
much like Libya with the GNC. Obama's ego prevents him from recognizing what a stupid idea this
was and how radically different types Assad a day Gaddafi's power bases were.
*They are hiding behind the war powers act and approval from post 9/11 legislation. Congress
an otherwise President are too cowardly to call our actions acts of war which is what they are.
washunate, October 7, 2015 at 1:40 pm
No.
But seriously, it is interesting seeing what the Oilprice guys think their audience wants
to hear. They are clearly inside the MSM echo chamber. You have everything from dichotomous balance
(because truth has two sides) to the charged political atmosphere (which sadly forces otherwise
honest and transparent leaders to engage in secrecy and deception against their will).
I particularly love how casual the author is with the notion that the President of the
United States has an explicit policy goal of deposing the leader of a sovereign nation. Ho hum,
just another head of state that must go.
susan the other, October 7, 2015 at 2:15 pm
This summary by Berke also reflects my puzzled observations. It wasn't that long ago that we
worried about a fundamentalist insurrection in SA and so we politely made ourselves scarce to
help the Saudis out.
There's probably now a pre-arranged trade off for the Saudis and Iran: SA gets to take over
Yemen; Iran gets to create a corridor through Syria. Who knows. I thought the meeting at the UN
between Obama and Putin was such thinly disguised cooperation that surely some MSM would comment
– but none did.
And the EU has stated (above) that sanctions against Russia are incompatible because the EU
is "relying on Russia's military might" and shouldn't therefore starve the Russian economy. Wow,
let's hear the story on that please.
So did Holland send in the French bombers to help out Russia? Maybe SA and RU are chummy because
Russia is going to get the contract to build the new pipeline from the Gulf to Europe.
blert, October 7, 2015 at 6:08 pm
Actually all of the load growth, for OPEC, is towards India and points east. American fracking
has released a glut of oil into the Atlantic Ocean market space.
Nigeria essentially lost North America as a customer - all together. If Libya and Venezuela get
their act together, the glut becomes even more pronounced. Then toss in Brazil's new out put.
Brian M, October 7, 2015 at 8:10 pm
many of the fracked wells will fail amazingly quickly. So, this may not be true for long...
skippy, October 7, 2015 at 8:14 pm
A giddy operator with the rights to a gas-rich parcel of land can't just drill willy-nilly.
Well design considerations are very complex and attention to detail must span the construction,
testing phase, and decommissioning of the well post-production. Moreover, drilling wells are often
constructed uniquely with regard to the geology and geography of the specific location. For instance,
because much of the shale formation in Pennsylvania lies beneath a shallower gas formation, it
is easier for the shallower gas to escape during the initial drilling process. This in turn has
made it difficult for drillers to design failproof wells that can be sealed off from the younger
deposits completely.
At this point in the Syrian crisis it appears that the national security network (several hundred
high-level military, intelligence, diplomatic and law enforcement agencies) are still debating
among themselves what the U.S. response will be to Russian military initiatives in Syria and potentially
Iraq.
For all Bernie Sanders supporters, it will be interesting to see what his stance on Syria will
be. Will he break( at least rhetorically) with these national security elites( who since WWII
have basically dictated Presidential moves in the national security arena) or will he cave to
this present structure of networked power despite his "democratic socialist" credentials.
Will Sanders maintain this continuity of American foreign policy that so shocked Obama supporters?
Will the United State continue on its path of greater centralization, less accountability and
emergent autocracy despite whoever wins the increasingly powerless Presidencyj?
RUKidding, October 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm
Here's my bet for the answer to your last 2 Q:
1. Yes
2. Yes
James Levy, October 7, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Unfortunately, I concur.
The amazing thing is watching the utter horror and confusion of the MSM and the Talking Heads
as the Russians do things (bombing ISIS! Firing cruise missiles!!!) that the US does just about
every other Tuesday, as if these things are some kind of massive breach of the peace on the order
of Hitler invading Poland. The lack of any self-awareness is stunning.
Oregoncharles, October 7, 2015 at 2:55 pm
"Russia is attempting to form and lead a UN authorized coalition against ISIL"
The obvious solution, especially if it does not include the US. I'm anti-interventionist in
general, but ISIL poses us the problem the Nazis did: this cannot be allowed to stand. They're
actually taking us back to the 7th Century, morally, and for that matter doing things Mohammed
probably wouldn't have stood for. Except in degree, most of their actions are not unprecedented,
even in modern times; what's unprecedented is their extreme openness about it. Hypocrisy is an
acknowledgment of morality; these people are trying to CHANGE morality, reversing hundreds of
years of hard-won progress. They're a kind of monster we thought we were rid of. And they've been
successful enough militarily, at least in that deeply destabilized region, to present a real threat.
Ultimately, they will have to be suppressed; it won't be easy or bloodless. The Russians'
proposal may be self-interested, but it's the only approach likely to work. American bombing certainly
won't.
ISIL's PR skills bother me on another level: they're extremely convenient for the interventionists.
They've even got me going. And there are real connections between it and the US authorities, especially
in Iraq, to say nothing of the Saudis. I can't help but wonder whether it's a CIA operation, either
run amok or conceivably still under control. (If you aren't paranoid, you aren't paying attention.)
Steven, October 7, 2015 at 4:17 pm
I keep wondering how much of what goes on here in the commentariat of Naked Capitalism
is just preaching to the choir and how much represents (well deserved) contempt for the official
government / MSM (but I repeat myself) line among the population at large. That contempt – if
it exists – is in my humble opinion – a national security issue / crisis.
JTMcPhee, October 7, 2015 at 7:46 pm
Quoting the captain of the Titanic, "More steam! Full speed ahead! We gotta show the world
what this baby will do!"
"OUR BROTHERS ARE there," Khalid said when he heard I was going to Ukraine. "Buy a local SIM card
when you get there, send me the number and then wait for someone to call you."
Khalid, who uses
a pseudonym, leads the Islamic State's underground branch in Istanbul. He came from Syria to help
control the flood of volunteers arriving in Turkey from all over the world, wanting to join the global
jihad. Now, he wanted to put me in touch with Ruslan, a "brother" fighting with Muslims in Ukraine.
The "brothers" are members of ISIS and other underground Islamic organizations, men who have abandoned
their own countries and cities. Often using pseudonyms and fake identities, they are working and
fighting in the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus, slipping across borders without visas. Some
are fighting to create a new Caliphate - heaven on earth. Others - like Chechens, Kurds and Dagestanis
- say they are fighting for freedom, independence and self-determination. They are on every continent,
and in almost every country, and now they are in Ukraine, too.
In the West, most look at the war in Ukraine as simply a battle between Russian-backed separatists
and the Ukrainian government. But the truth on the ground is now far more complex, particularly when
it comes to the volunteer battalions fighting on the side of Ukraine. Ostensibly state-sanctioned,
but not necessarily state-controlled, some have been supported by Ukrainian oligarchs, and others
by private citizens. Less talked about, however, is the Dudayev battalion, named after the first
president of Chechnya, Dzhokhar Dudayev, and founded by Isa Munayev, a Chechen commander who fought
in two wars against Russia.
Ukraine is now becoming an important stop-off point for the brothers, like Ruslan. In Ukraine,
you can buy a passport and a new identity. For $15,000, a fighter receives a new name and a legal
document attesting to Ukrainian citizenship. Ukraine doesn't belong to the European Union, but it's
an easy pathway for immigration to the West. Ukrainians have few difficulties obtaining visas to
neighboring Poland, where they can work on construction sites and in restaurants, filling the gap
left by the millions of Poles who have left in search of work in the United Kingdom and Germany.
You can also do business in Ukraine that's not quite legal. You can earn easy money for the brothers
fighting in the Caucasus, Syria and Afghanistan. You can "legally" acquire unregistered weapons to
fight the Russian-backed separatists, and then export them by bribing corrupt Ukrainian customs officers.
"Our goal here is to get weapons, which will be sent to the Caucasus," Ruslan, the brother who
meets me first in Kiev, admits without hesitation.
WITH HIS WHITE hair and beard, Ruslan is still physically fit, even at 57. He's
been a fighter his entire adult life. Born in a small mountain village in the Caucasus, on the border
between Dagestan and Chechnya, Ruslan belongs to an ethnic minority known as the Lak, who are predominantly
Sunni Muslim.
The world that Ruslan inhabits - the world of the brothers - is something new. When he first became
a fighter, there wasn't any Internet or cell phones, or cameras on the street, or drones. Ruslan
joined the brothers when the Soviet Union collapsed, and he went to fight for a better world, first
against the Russians in Chechnya and Dagestan during the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s. He then
moved to Azerbaijan, where he was eventually arrested in 2004 on suspicion of maintaining contact
with al Qaeda.
Even though Ruslan admits to fighting with Islamic organizations, he claims the actual basis for
the arrest in Azerbaijan - illegal possession of weapons - was false. Authorities couldn't find anything
suspicious where he was living (Ruslan was staying at the time with his "brothers" in the jihad movement)
but in his wife's home they found a single hand grenade. Ruslan was charged with illegal weapons
possession and sent to prison for several years.
In prison, he says he was tortured and deliberately housed in a cell with prisoners infected with
tuberculosis. Ruslan took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, accusing
the authorities in Azerbaijan of depriving him of due process. The court eventually agreed, and asked
the Azerbaijani government to pay Ruslan 2,400 euros in compensation, plus another 1,000 euros for
court costs.
But when Ruslan was released from prison, he didn't want to stay in Azerbaijan, fearing he would
be rearrested, or even framed for a crime and again accused of terrorism. "Some of our people disappear
and are never found," he says. "There was one brother [who disappeared], and when he was brought
for burial, a card was found showing that he was one of 30 people held in detention in Russia."
In Russia, a warrant was issued for Riuan's arrest. Returning to his small mountain village was
out of the question. If he goes back, his family will end up paying for what he does, anyhow. "They
get to us through our families," he says. He condemns those who refused to leave their own country
and fight the infidels. This was the choice: either stay, or go abroad where "you can breathe freedom."
"Man is born free," Ruslan says. "We are slaves of God and not the slaves of people, especially
those who are against their own people, and break the laws of God. There is only one law: the law
of God."
After his release from prison in Azerbaijan, Ruslan became the eternal wanderer, a rebel - and
one of the brothers now in Ukraine. He came because Munayev, now head of the Dudayev battalion, decided
the brothers should fight in Ukraine. "I am here today because my brother, Isa, called us and said,
'It's time to repay your debt,'" Ruslan says. "There was a time when the brothers from Ukraine came
[to Chechnya] and fought against the common enemy, the aggressor, the occupier."
That debt is to Ukrainians like Oleksandr Muzychko, who became one of the brothers, even though
he never converted to Islam. Muzyczko, along with other Ukrainian volunteers, joined Chechen fighters
and took part in the first Chechen war against Russia. He commanded a branch of Ukrainian volunteers,
called "Viking," which fought under famed Chechen militant leader Shamil Basayev. Muzychko died last
year in Ukraine
under mysterious circumstances.
Ruslan has been in Ukraine for almost a year, and hasn't seen his family since he arrived. Their
last separation lasted almost seven years. He's never had time to raise children, or even really
to get to know them. Although he's a grandfather, he only has one son - a small family by Caucasian
standards, but better for him, since a smaller family costs less. His wife calls often and asks for
money, but Ruslan rarely has any to give her.
IN THE 17th century, the area to the east of the Dnieper River was known as the "wilderness,"
an ungoverned territory that attracted refugees, criminals and peasants - a place beyond the reach
of the Russian empire. Today, this part of Ukraine plays a similar role, this time for Muslim brothers.
In eastern Ukraine, the green flag of jihad flies over some of the private battalions' bases.
For many Muslims, like Ruslan, the war in Ukraine's Donbass region is just the next stage in the
fight against the Russian empire. It doesn't matter to them whether their ultimate goal is a Caliphate
in the Middle East, or simply to have the Caucuses free of Russian influence - the brothers are united
not by nation, but by a sense of community and solidarity.
But the brothers barely have the financial means for fighting or living. They are poor, and very
rarely receive grants from the so-called Islamic humanitarian organizations. They must earn money
for themselves, and this is usually done by force. Amber is one of the ideas Ruslan has for financing
the "company of brothers" fighting in eastern Ukraine - the Dudayev battalion, which includes Muslims
from several nations, Ukrainians, Georgians, and even a few Russians.
The brothers had hoped the Ukrainian authorities would appreciate their dedication and willingness
to give their lives in defense of Ukrainian sovereignty, but they miscalculated. Like other branches
of fighters - Aidar, Azov and Donbass - the government, for the most part, ignores them. They're
armed volunteers outside the control of Kiev, and Ukraine's politicians also fear that one day, instead
of fighting Russians in the east, the volunteers will turn on the government in Kiev. So ordinary
people help the volunteers, but it's not enough. The fighters associated with the Ukrainian nationalist
Right Sector get money, cars and houses from the rich oligarchs.
Ruslan has a different plan. He's afraid that if they begin stealing from the rich, the Ukrainian
government will quickly declare their armed branch illegal. He's decided to work in the underground
economy - uncontrolled by the state - which the brothers know best.
Back in the '90s, the amber mines in the vast forests surrounding the city of Rivne were state-owned
and badly run, so residents began illegally mining; it was a chance at easy money. Soon, however,
the mafia took over. For the right daily fee, miners could work and sell amber to the mafia at a
fixed price: $100 per kilogram. The mafia conspired with local militia, prosecutors and the governor.
That was the way business worked.
As a result, although Ukraine officially produces 3 tons of amber annually, more than 15 tons
are illegally exported to Poland each year. There, the ore is processed and sold at a substantial
profit. The Rivne mines operate 24 hours a day. Hundreds of people with shovels in hand search the
forest; they pay less to the mafia, but they extract less amber and earn less. The better off are
those who have a water pump. Those people pump water at high pressure into the earth between the
trees, until a cavity 2 to 3 meters deep forms. Amber, which is lighter than water, rises to the
surface.
At one point, Ruslan disappeared in Rivne for several weeks. When he returned, he was disappointed;
he'd failed to convince the local mafia to cooperate with the brothers' fight for an independent
Ukraine. But now, he has other arguments to persuade them. His men are holding up the mines, by not
allowing anyone into the forest. Either the local gangsters share their profits, or no one will get
paid.
Ruslan doesn't like this job. He knows it won't bring him any glory, and could land him in prison.
He would have preferred to be among the fighters at the front lines, where everything is clear and
clean. He says he can still fight, but he's already too old to really endure the rigors of battle,
even if he doesn't want to admit it. He may still be physically fit, but fighters don't usually last
longer than a few years. Then they lose their strength and will to fight.
He has other orders from
Munayev: he's supposed to organize a "direct response group" in Kiev. The group will be a sort of
rear echelon unit that take care of problems, like if someone tries to discredit the Dudayev battalion.
It will also collect debts or scare off competition. There's no doubt the new branch will work behind
the lines, where there isn't war, but there is money - as long as you know where to get it. If need
be, the direct response group volunteers will watch over the mines in Rivne, or "will acquire" money
from illegal casinos, which operate by the hundreds in Kiev.
Ruslan sends me photos of the group's criminal exploits: they came into the casinos with weapons,
and broke into the safes and slot machines. They disappeared quickly, and were never punished. The
money went to food, uniforms, boots, tactical vests and other equipment necessary for the fighters.
The mafia knows they can't beat them at this game. The brothers are too good, because they are armed
and experienced in battle. The police aren't interested in getting involved either. In the end, it's
illegal gambling.
I told Ruslan that it's a dangerous game. He laughed.
"It's child's play," he says. "We used to do this in Dagestan. No one will lift a finger. Don't
worry."
RUSLAN FINALLY DROVE me to see his "older brother," to Isa Munayev, and his secret base located
many miles west of Donetsk.
Riding in an old Chrysler that Ruslan bought in Poland, we drove for several hours, on potholed
and snowy roads. Ruslan had glued to the car one of the emblems of Ukraine's ATO, the so-called Anti-Terrorist
Operation, which includes both soldiers and volunteers in the fight against separatists.
The bumper sticker allows him to drive through police traffic stops without being held up - or
if he is stopped, they won't demand bribes as they do from other drivers. The ATO sticker, Ruslan's
camouflage uniform, and a gun in his belt are enough to settle matters. Policemen salute him and
wish him good luck.
He drives fast, not wanting to rest, sleep or even drink coffee. If he stops, it's to check the
compass on his belt to check the direction of Mecca. When it's time to pray, he stops the car, turns
off the engine, places his scarf in the snow and bows down to Allah.
Asked whether - after so many hardships, after so many years, and at his age, almost 60 now -
he would finally like to rest, he answered indignantly, "How could I feel tired?"
There's much more work to do, according to Ruslan. "There's been a small result, but we will rest
only when we've reached our goals," he says. "I'm carrying out orders, written in the Holy Quran.
'Listen to God, the Prophet.' And I listen to him and do what I'm told."
On the way into the city of Kryvyi Rih, we met with Dima, a young businessman - under 40 - but
already worth some $5 million. He's recently lost nearly $3 million from his business in Donetsk,
which has been hit hard by the war. Dima worked for Igor Kolomoisky, one of the oligarchs who had
been funding Ukraine's volunteer battalions. Dima and Ruslan have only known each other for a short
time. Ruslan claimed Dima owed him a lot of money, although it's unclear from what. Ruslan kept bothering
him, threatening to blackmail him. Finally, he got $20,000 from Dima.
That's not nearly enough to support the Dudayev battalion. But Ruslan had something bigger to
offer Dima: amber. Now, Dima was ready to talk. He came up with the idea to find buyers in the Persian
Gulf, including wealthy sheikhs. They would like to sell an entire house of amber: furniture, stairs,
floors, and inlaid stones. It only takes contacts, and Ruslan has them. The brothers from Saudi Arabia
like to help the jihad in the Caucasus and the Middle East.
The next day, Ruslan was behind the wheel again. The old Chrysler barely moved, its engine overheated.
A mechanic with an engineering degree and experience working in Soviet arms factories connected a
plastic bottle filled with dirty water to the radiator using a rubber hose.
"I don't know how long I'll last," Ruslan says suddenly. "It depends on God. I'll probably die
on this road. But I don't have any other road to take."
Photos: Tomasz Glowacki
Next: The Life and Death of a Chechen Commander
* At the request of the writer, "Ruslan" is identified by a pseudonym.
– The material for this story is part of BROTHERS, a documentary film being developed for Germany's
broadcaster WDR – Die Story and Autentic, produced by Propellerfilm, broadcast date May 18th, 10pm
(MET).
Insufficient evidence
for prosecution to declare shooting of MH17 a terrorist act..
Notable quotes:
"... The refusal of the Australian officials to make the statutory declaration that they have the
evidence under Australian law to declare a terrorist act suggests they don't have the evidence at
all. Until now, none has noticed the convergence of the Australian autopsy evidence in the
Coroners Court in Melbourne, and the revelation in the Brisbane court that the government is
refusing to declare a terrorist act. ..."
"... Dutch media report Australian lawyers for kin of victims have filed a complaint with
the ICC in the Hague seeking to indict several Dutch government ministers as well as
Eurocontrol and others for 'gross negligence'. ..."
"... If I'm right, the Russians have the evidence that proves whodunnit. They're just waiting until
the Dutch put out their report. Shot from the sky by military (whose is a guess) planes, not
BUK missiles. If they had one atom from a BUK, we'd know about it. ..."
"... It now appears that the likelihood 'on balance' is that it was the Ukrainian government
that shot down the plane. Establishing the case on a balance of probabilities would be good
enough in a civil jurisdiction. ..."
"... Obviously we westerners cannot tolerate that result otherwise everything we have said
about the accident will be thought to be intentionally misleading. It would be far far better
to obfuscate the investigative results and say it was inconclusive. Then our newspapers can
say those crafty Russians got away with it. ..."
"... Fingers crossed. Its not impossible that the truth will out. ..."
Fifteen weeks later, by the time Abbott spoke in November, he had been briefed on the evidence
gathered by Australian pathologists and the Victorian State Coroner from the bodies of MH17
victims. No evidence of shrapnel from a Buk missile warhead had been found. For that story,
read on.
... ... ...
The refusal of the Australian officials to make the statutory declaration that they have the
evidence under Australian law to declare a terrorist act suggests they don't have the evidence at
all. Until now, none has noticed the convergence of the Australian autopsy evidence in the
Coroners Court in Melbourne, and the revelation in the Brisbane court that the government is
refusing to declare a terrorist act.
... ... ...
For the Dutch Government's compilation of its official statements on the MH17 crash, open
this file. According to van der Goen, none of the investigating countries has legitimate
authority to prosecute, "if only because the Netherlands and the other countries mentioned are
possible suspects themselves - and they refuse to see this. So the case will be endlessly
shelved. Eventually, it will be adopted at a parliamentary inquiry that mistakes were made, but
then noone will still be awake. Excellent solution."
Ilargi, October 8, 2015 at 1:53 am
Dutch media report Australian lawyers for kin of victims have filed a complaint with
the ICC in the Hague seeking to indict several Dutch government ministers as well as
Eurocontrol and others for 'gross negligence'.
Chris Williams, October 8, 2015 at 2:35 am
I don't know how our clever governments (US, Australia, Netherlands, UK etc) are going to
get out of this one. Perhaps, as JH suggests, they will continue to defer and prevaricate,
keeping their 'evidence'… until know one cares.
If I'm right, the Russians have the evidence that proves whodunnit. They're just waiting until
the Dutch put out their report. Shot from the sky by military (whose is a guess) planes, not
BUK missiles. If they had one atom from a BUK, we'd know about it.
JTMcPhee, October 8, 2015 at 9:09 pm
For a different and more complete view, one might read here:
Not some "itchy radar operator," it would seem. But the Narrative must be protected…
low_integer, October 9, 2015 at 6:22 am
So the damage to the body would come from the exploding engine. It's so big, spinning
so fast, that the energy released is far, far, greater than the warheads. !!!
So, you can't tell either way based on the plane's body. You'd have to have
microscopic analysis of the engine components - which would be very challenging and take
just about forever.
Obfuscation. The parts in a passenger aircraft's jet engine that are moving, the turbine
blades, are made of nickel-based superalloys and I believe they are single 'grain' components,
which means they have consistent strength throughout and would be very unlikely to fracture.
Also, damage to the fuselage of a passenger jet from turbine blades would be easily
identifiable due to their shape and position as the energy of the turbine blades would be
dispersed at right angles to the direction of thrust. Lastly, the casing around these blades
would, at the very least, absorb a significant amount of this energy.
Are you the guy who replied to one of my posts that Cthulu caused 9/11?
RBHoughton, October 8, 2015 at 9:17 pm
It now appears that the likelihood 'on balance' is that it was the Ukrainian government
that shot down the plane. Establishing the case on a balance of probabilities would be good
enough in a civil jurisdiction.
Obviously we westerners cannot tolerate that result otherwise everything we have said
about the accident will be thought to be intentionally misleading. It would be far far better
to obfuscate the investigative results and say it was inconclusive. Then our newspapers can
say those crafty Russians got away with it.
If not, eastern Ukraine and Russia will score a huge win and we will have even more egg on our
faces than usual. Its bad enough that fewer people believe us but its far worse that they
begin to prefer Putin's version.
The hopeful thing here is the lawyers. Older readers will recall people used to study law
because they respected the concept of a law-based society. It was not just about the money.
Some of these vocational lawyers can still be found and it is my hope that they get fully
involved in this case. Fingers crossed. Its not impossible that the truth will out.
Thanks again Naked Capitalism for reporting important news that is neglected by others.
In 2014, Gazprom delivered
27.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Turkey via its Blue Stream and Trans-Balkan pipelines.
Gas exports from Russia are up some 34 percent since
2010, and Turkey
– now Russia's second largest market after Germany – is only getting hungrier. By 2030, gas demand
in Turkey is
expected to expand 30 percent, reaching 70 bcm per year.
... ... ...
With European demand projected to
grow by just over 1 bcm per year in the same period, Russia's South Stream pipeline proposal
was as misguided as it was non-compliant with the EU's Third Energy Package. Routed through Turkey
however, Russia's newest pipeline, TurkStream, promised to add greater utility. Turkey gets its gas
and partly fulfills its transit aspirations; Russia bypasses Ukraine while opening windows to Europe
and the Middle East; and Europe, if it wants it, will have gas
on demand.
It sounds good – okay, at least – but as so often happens in Russia, the tale has taken a turn
for the worse. TurkStream has stumbled out of the gates and larger happenings in Syria look to significantly
damage Russia-Turkey relations.
Originally intended as a four-pipe 63-bcm project, TurkStream will now
top out at 32 bcm,
if it gets off the ground at all. As it stands, the parties have
agreed to draft the text of
an intergovernmental agreement, with a targeted signing date of early next year, following Turkey's
general election. And that's it.
ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine - How do you prove you didn't blow up a plane? In Russia, you blow up
a plane.
A Russian missile manufacturer said Friday that it had exploded a missile beneath a
decommissioned Boeing airliner similar to that of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, shot out of the
sky over eastern Ukraine last year, proving the passenger jet was not downed by one of its
missiles.
"The company will present the results of a real-time simulation of a Buk missile hitting a
passenger jet which we hope will help us understand what exactly caused the July 17, 2014 crash
of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in Ukraine's Donetsk region," Almaz-Antey said in a
statement.
The company did not say when the experiment took place or how it was conducted, and it did not
immediately reply to Mashable's request for comment. Its report will be released on Tuesday, Oct.
13, the same day a joint international investigation led by the Dutch Safety Board will release
its full report into the causes of the downing.
At a press conference in Moscow in June, Almaz-Antey said it was prepared to carry out
such an experiment to prove MH17 was downed by an older version of their missile that isn't in
service with the Russian military, but is in Ukraine's arsenal.
Company officials at the time did not say whether the aircraft would be in flight during the
experiment.
MH17 was downed over the village of Hrabovo, eastern Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam to
Kuala Lumpa on July 17, 2014. All 298 passengers and crew on board the jetliner were killed and
their remains scattered over the battlefields in war-torn Donetsk region.
Western governments and Kiev have accused Russian-backed separatists of shooting down the
passenger jet, mistaking it for a Ukrainian military aircraft, with a Buk SA-11 missile provided
by Moscow. Their accusations are supported by preliminary evidence gathered by open source
sleuths Bellingcat, as well as investigators and Mashable's own investigation.
On Wednesday, Vasyl Vovk, a senior officer of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) who has been
involved in the investigation into the downing, told Dutch news site NOS that the fragments found
in the aircraft wreckage and in victims' bodies matched pieces from two Buk missiles that
investigators examined for comparison.
The Kremlin and separatist leaders have blamed Kiev for the disaster, insisting it was downed
either by a Ukrainian Buk missile or a government jet fighter.
While the Dutch report due next week will shine a light on what caused the plane to crash and
burn, it will not lay blame.
A separate criminal investigation headed by Dutch detectives and involving investigators from
Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine is still pending.
Attempts by the United Nations Security Council to create a tribunal to prosecute those
responsible for the crime was vetoed by Russia, a permanent member of the council, in July.
Moscow has called the move "premature" and decried the Dutch-led investigation as biased.
Terrorists
in Su-24 search operation area killed - Russian Defense Ministry
